Portugal's Impresa media outlets hit by hackers
Reuters
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A man holds a laptop computer as cyber encrypt is projected on him in this illustration render taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration render taken on may 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
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LISBON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The websites of ace of Portugal's biggest newspapers and of a major broadcaster, both owned by the country's largest media conglomerate Impresa, were down on Monday after being bang by a hacker onslaught over the weekend.
Expresso newspaper and sic TV station both said they reported the incident to the criminal investigation constabulary office PJ and the National Cybersecurity centre (CNCS) and would file a complaint.
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The alleged hackers, calling themselves Lapsus$ Group, published a message on the websites saying internal data would be leaked if the media group failed to pay a ransom. The content included email and Telegram impinging info.
The group did not immediately reply to a Reuters bespeak for comment.
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Lapsus$, which claims that it gained access to Impresa's amazon web Services account, also sent a phishing e-mail to Expresso subscribers and tweeted from the newspaper's verified twitter account.
The same radical allegedly hacked Brazil's health ministry website last month, taking several systems down, including one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issuing digital vaccination certificates. register more
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CNCS's coordinator, Lino Santos, told Observador newspaper it was the first time the group launched an assault in the country.
Websites of Expresso and SIC are experience been offline since Sunday, with the pages showing a message expression they are temporarily unavailable following the attack and would proceeds as soon as possible.
In the meantime, both media organisations are publishing news stories on their social media channels. They described it as an unprecedented onset on press freedom in the digital age.