The Portuguese press group Impresa, which notably owns Express, one of the main newspapers in the country, as well as the group of television stations SIC, was the victim of a cyberattack Sunday January 2.
The hackers modified the home pages of several of the group’s websites, including those ofExpress and SIC, which were still inaccessible Monday morning. They also hijacked the Twitter account ofExpress and sent an e-mail on behalf of the editorial staff of the weekly announcing (wrongly) that the President of the Republic had been accused of murder.
In a Facebook post, one of the only digital channels currently available to editorial journalists, Express denounced Sunday “An unprecedented attack on press freedom in Portugal in the digital age”. The Impresa group also announced that it was going to file a complaint and that it was collaborating with the authorities, in particular the police and the National Cyber Security Center.
A group already responsible for several attacks in the past
The attack was claimed by the Lapsus $ group. In the message displayed on the hacked websites, the hackers claimed to have recovered large amounts of data and threatened to disclose it if a ransom was not paid. This modus operandi suggests a ransomware attack, malicious software that paralyzes computer systems, with the perpetrators demanding a ransom to unlock them.
The Lapsus $ group, which speaks in Portuguese – a rarity in the industry -, had already claimed the hacking of several sites belonging to the ministry of health Brazilian as well as an attack against the Brazilian national postal service, in December. On his Telegram account, he also claimed to be responsible for attacks against a Brazilian telephone operator and against several government sites in the country.