Portugal's Impresa media outlets hit by hackers
Reuters
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A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on may 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber cypher is projected on him in this example picture taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
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LISBON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The websites of single 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 hit by a hacker assault over the weekend.
Expresso newspaper and SIC TV station both said they reported the incident to the criminal investigation police agency PJ and the national Cybersecurity center (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 radical failed to pay a ransom. The message included e-mail and telegram contact info.
The group did not immediately reply to a Reuters asking 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 group allegedly hacked Brazil's health ministry website last month, taking several systems down, including single with information about the national immunization program and another used to egress digital vaccination certificates. show more
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CNCS's coordinator, Lino Santos, told Observador newspaper it was the first time the group launched an tone-beginning in the country.
Websites of Expresso and SIC are have been offline since Sunday, with the pages showing a content saying they are temporarily unavailable following the attack and would return 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 round on press freedom in the digital age.