Due to the failure of the platform PressReader, which provides access to the print versions of media from around the world, around 7,000 newspapers and magazines, including Clarion, were left without their digital versions for many hours on Thursday.
The incident, which occurred late Thursday, could have been caused by a cyberattack on the corporation in retribution for the removal of Russian media from the digital kiosk during the Ukraine attack.
The Vancouver-based firm distributed the first version, dubbed “a network breakdown incident.” It has an impact on all websites and applications.
“We appreciate that many of our readers and partners around the world are quite frustrated by this. Please remember that our entire team is working tirelessly to rectify this matter as quickly as possible,” the business said in a statement and on social media.
The PressReader digital kiosk has a print version of Clarn available.
The service was restored this morning, according to the company’s Twitter account. It made no mention of a cyber-attack or a security flaw in its systems.
Clarion believed the exact issue was that PressReader was experiencing a network outage that impacted not only their platform but also their emails and service. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for uploading files (File Transfer Protocol). It’s the same one that newspapers all over the world use to upload their digital versions to PressReader and get them published. As a result, the service was unavailable to the end user.
A possible relation to the Ukraine conflict
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cyber attacks increased. EFE photo
The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as local media such as Clarion, are among the clients of PressReader, which offers a subscription to access media from around the world through its web version and mobile applications.
Although it has not been verified that it is a hack, the company’s origins have sparked speculation. Although the owners of PressReader are of Ukrainian descent, the company is backed by Russian finance.
As a result, following the demise of Russian newspapers, some specialized media outlets speculated on a link between the fall and a suspected cyber assault, given that many criminal organizations are based in Russia.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, numerous actors rearranged themselves, and cyberattacks became more common. In less than two weeks, new groups formed to support the various factions.
Conti, one of the world’s greatest cybercriminal gangs – and the creators of the Log4j2 virus – disclosed 60,000 chats with its own members, as well as victims, journalists, and other actors, last week.
So yet, no mention of Press Reader has emerged on the blogs of the big gangs: cybercriminals frequently do this to demonstrate that they are the culprits of data theft, attacks, and other illegal activities.