The Philadelphia Inquirer confirms a cyberattack striking thousands

The Philadelphia Inquirer discloses that the threat actors that executed the hack on their systems in May last year had stolen the personal and financial data of more than 25,000 people. This news outlet is Philadelphia’s most well-known and accomplished publication entity since it earned 20 Pulitzer Prizes since its establishment in 1829.

The Inquirer announced in May last year that a cyberattack had compromised its computers after spotting its content management system went down quickly. Subsequently, the news company took down several computer systems offline to mitigate the security breach and employed a third-party security provider that could help them address the incident.

However, the confirmed implication of the attack disrupts the print newspaper’s publication. This disruption affected the company’s home delivery, making the customers access Inquirer’s website to catch up on the latest as the site remained unaffected.

 

The cyberattack on the Philadelphia Inquirer has compromised personal details and financial information.

 

According to investigations, the Inquirer cyberattack exposed various details that affected relevant individuals in the newspaper company. The confirmed data exposed during last year’s incidents include names and other personal identifiers, such as credit/debit card numbers and financial account numbers, alongside the account’s security code, access code, password, or PIN.

The newspaper company urged the affected individuals to monitor their accounts and be mindful of their digital activities as they could spot signs of identity theft and fraud. Fortunately, the company has offered free credit monitoring and identity restoration services for two years.

On the other hand, the Cuba ransomware group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Inquirer despite the company not revealing any names about the nature or identity of the threat actors.

The ransomware group claimed to have stolen financial information, correspondence with bank staff, balance sheets, tax paperwork, compensation, and source code from Inquirer’s infected systems.

The ransomware group also posted the stolen files on its dark web leak site after the publication, but they refused to pay the ransom, and their extortion tactic failed.

However, after the ransomware group exposed the alleged stolen details, the affected company claimed the compromised documents did not come from their newspaper. The ransomware gang then quickly removed the Philadelphia Inquirer entry from its website.