Cyber-attack disrupts distribution of multiple US newspapers

The attack led to delayed distribution of The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and other titles belonging to Tribune Publishing. The company said it first detected the malware on Friday, which hit papers sharing the same printing plant.

The attack is believed to have come from outside the US, the LA Times said. West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which share the same production platform in Los Angeles, were also affected.

"We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically servers, as opposed to looking to steal information," an anonymous source with knowledge of the attack told the LA Times.

Cyber-attack disrupts distribution of multiple US newspapers

It seems like the US is being probed and tested on the cyber front. Non-critical systems are being attacked. Lets hope this is not a run-up to a bigger attack on critical systems. If the attacker is identified will the US retaliate for an attack like this?

a reply to: LookingAtMars

If the attacker is identified will the US retaliate for an attack like this?

Taken care of.

Those phone calls coming into our house trying to scam us, the government doesn't do crap about that, so why should they be involved in a newspaper that got hacked from out of country people. I feel those papers and the businesses they employ should boost security so it does not happen again. They can file suit against whomever if they find out who actually did it, our government should not start trying to arrest people in other countries, if it was from our country, I would say go for it.

Having all this stuff online is stupid, too much risk is involved with businesses and government being tied to the net. A good group of hackers could screw up the country within months and cause a lot of cost to businesses whom will pass on the cost to the customers.

a reply to: rickymouse

I'm surprised someone as normal as you is still .. here. People with common sense usually don't last long , so i've noticed.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

The paper is probably far better equipped to mitigate against an ongoing attack than the government.

The long term response against the attackers is more the purview of the NSA and similar government teams but agile attackers will probably be gone by the time they have any hard trace.

There are also issues of jurisdiction.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

I'm more worried about the who and why then the gov's immediate response. The article says the intention seemed to be to disable the infrastructure and not steal information. Was there attempted blackmail like a lot of these cases? Or is this some kind of probing like the OP is wondering? Coming on the heels of the 911 outage this makes me a tad nervous.

Looks like it was Ransomware according to a source at Tribune Publishing. A DDG search does show instructions on how to remove the virus and recover files.

The Ryuk ransomware strain is the primary suspect in a cyberattack that caused printing and delivery disruptions for several major US newspapers over the weekend.

Ransomware suspected in cyberattack that crippled major US newspapers

North Korea may be behind this, but with this virus in the wild for sometime now anyone could be behind this attack.

Ryuk has ties to Hermes, previously tied to North Korea A report published today by cyber-security firm Check Point also points out that Ryuk may be the work of the same people who developed the Hermes ransomware —or at least someone who gained access to the Hermes ransomware source code.

Ryuk has ties to Hermes, previously tied to North Korea

Looks like the attack did come from outside the US. Papers like the Los Angeles Times are still effected by the attack.

The information and printing system of the Los Angeles Times has been disrupted since Thursday night. It meant some content could not be sent to printing plants. The Los Angeles Times was not delivered in some areas, while the Chicago Tribune and a newspaper in Florida were also hit as they use the same system. The Los Angeles Times wrote that the attack is likely to have come from outside the United States. It reported that the attack came in the form of malware. Other US media pointed to the possible involvement of a North Korean hacker team called "Lazarus Group," which is known to have previously used the same malware. The Los Angeles Times told NHK on Sunday that the system outage has not yet been completely resolved.

Cyberattack on US papers could be from N.Korea

Looks like America (the people) have a new ally trying to help us.

Wait, I'm confused. Something doesn't add up. You mean to tell me newspapers still exist?? How?

This does not have to be a government attack, but more likely an opportunistic maneuver by some independent person. Perhaps surprisingly, most of the bots on the internet are non Western world, and put out by kids in far off countries who have studied some computer science.