Philadelphia Inquirer faces cyberattack leading to major disruption

Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the largest newspapers in Pennsylvania, experienced the most significant disruption to its operations in 27 years due to a cyberattack. The news operation’s website was still operational on Sunday, although updates were slower than normal. The attack was first detected when employees found that the newspaper’s content-management system was not functioning.

The impact of the cyberattack is severe, as it halted the production of the newspaper’s Sunday print edition. It also led to extensive disruption to publication, affecting the news organization’s printing, delivery, and other internal systems. As a result, the newspaper was working to restore print operations, and an investigation was underway to understand the extent of the cyberattack.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has contacted the FBI to investigate the attack. Although the FBI declined to comment on the situation, Inquirer publisher Lisa Hughes said that the operational disruption would not affect news coverage of the mayoral primary election scheduled for Tuesday. Hughes said that other Inquirer employees would not be allowed to use offices through at least Tuesday, and the company was exploring co-working arrangements for that day.

This cyberattack on the Philadelphia Inquirer is not isolated, with various organizations around the world experiencing similar incidents in recent times. The attack on a media entity by a cybercriminal reveals that news organizations are also vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Therefore, it is essential to build cyber resilience, and this requires proper security measures by deploying up-to-date technology and educating employees about potential cyber threats.

The significance of cybersecurity underscores the crucial need for organizations to have an expert on cyber risks. It is important to assess and mitigate cyber risks continually and to implement appropriate measures to safeguard information and technology assets from cyber threats. Therefore, it’s high time for businesses to develop incident response plans, review their backup and data recovery capabilities, and monitor and improve their cybersecurity posture.

In conclusion, the cyberattack on the Philadelphia Inquirer caused the largest disruption to the newspaper’s operations in over two decades. It highlights the need for businesses to strengthen their cyber resilience and emphasizes the significance of developing incident response plans to safeguard technology and information assets against cyber attacks.

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