Portugal's Impresa media outlets hit by hackers
Reuters
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A man holds a laptop computer as cyber cipher is projected on him in this example ikon taken on May 13, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this example image 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 beingness hit by a hacker round over the weekend.
Expresso newspaper and sic TV station both said they reported the incident to the crook investigation police agency PJ and the National Cybersecurity kernel (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 e-mail and Telegram contact info.
The group did not immediately reply to a Reuters petition 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 one with information about the national immunization program and another used to issuance digital vaccination certificates. read more
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CNCS's coordinator, Lino Santos, told Observador newspaper it was the first time the group launched an onset in the country.
Websites of Expresso and sic are get been offline since Sunday, with the pages display 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 tidings stories on their social media channels. They described it as an unprecedented assail on press freedom in the digital age.