The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” and the “Switzerland at the weekend” appeared in reduced numbers on Saturday due to a cyber attack. Because of the cyber attack, several services from the media companies NZZ and CH Media were not available on Friday.
According to an announcement in the Saturday edition, the “NZZ” appeared in a slightly reduced size. CH Media’s “Switzerland at the weekend” reported that the newspapers were published as a single edition. “The familiar regional editions had to be bundled.” The online offering of the media is not affected.
According to CH Media, the attack on Friday was a cyber attack by so-called ransomware. Hackers can use this to penetrate a victim’s computer system and gain access to IT systems or data or even block them. They can also lock out their victims with encryption technology and demand a ransom. According to the information, CH Media obtains various IT services from the NZZ media group and was therefore also directly affected by the cyber attack on the NZZ infrastructure.
Attack is cleared
Among other things, the work in editorial offices was affected, including the production of radio programs, as the Keystone-SDA news agency learned from editorial circles.
The attack was recognized and isolated early on, the company wrote in a statement to NZZ. The attack is analyzed by the NZZ IT department, external specialists and experts from the National Center for Cyber Security (NCSC) and the Zurich cantonal police.
CH Media publishes “Aargauer Zeitung”, “Luzerner Zeitung” and “St. Galler Tagblatt» and owns various radio and TV stations such as 3Plus and Tele Züri. 65 percent of CH Media belongs to AZ Medien from publisher Peter Wanner and 35 percent to NZZ. Among other things, the NZZ Group publishes the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”.
