The Philadelphia Inquirer reported a cyberattack that disrupted newspaper operations, the biggest disruption to its publications since a massive blizzard in 1996.
The cyberattack prevented the newspaper from being able to print the Sunday edition of the newspaper. The company did not learn until late Sunday afternoon that it could print Monday's newspaper, The Inquirer reported on its website.
The Inquirer's website remained functional for posting and updating articles, although it was slower than normal.
Publisher Lisa Hughes told a reporter for The Inquirer on Sunday that "we are currently unable to provide an exact timeline" for full restoration of newspaper operations.
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"We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work to fully restore systems and complete this investigation as soon as possible," Hughes said. "We will keep our employees and readers informed as we learn more."
The attack came just days before Tuesday's mayoral election. Hughes said employees will not be allowed to use offices through at least Tuesday because of the disruptions, meaning the newsroom would not be available to reporters on election night.
She said the operational disruption would not affect the election's news coverage and that the company was looking into co-working arrangements for Tuesday.
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Hughes said she notified the FBI of the cyberattack. The FBI's Philadelphia office said it was aware of the attack but declined to comment further to The Inquirer.
It is unclear when the cyberattack began, but Hughes said the news organization was "first alerted to the anomalous activity" on Thursday by Cynet, a vendor that manages the outlet's network security. Publication continued without disruption on Thursday and Friday.
Employees first detected disruptions Saturday morning when they discovered that the newspaper's content-management system was not working. Hughes said The Inquirer had "discovered anomalous activity on select computer systems and immediately took those systems off-line."
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Workarounds were made within a few hours to allow articles to be posted on the website.
Monday’s newspapers will be printed and delivered, but classified ads will be postponed from appearing in the print newspapers until Wednesday "out of an abundance of caution," Hughes said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
