Newspaper conglomerate Lee Enterprises says cyberattack disrupting print editions

A cyberattack is impacting the availability of newspapers belonging to Lee Enterprises, one of the largest owners of local papers in the U.S.

The company told Recorded Future News it is “working through technology issues that caused some disruption” to the company’s day-to-day work.

“Our technology response team has been working with third-party specialists to fully restore our systems and investigate the nature of these disruptions. Unfortunately, our investigation has determined that the situation was the result of a cybersecurity event,” the spokesperson said. 

“We are now focused on determining what information – if any – may have been affected by the situation. We are working to complete this investigation as quickly and thoroughly as possible, but these types of investigations are complex and time-consuming, with many taking several weeks or longer to complete.” 

People across the U.S. began reporting last week that they were not receiving their printed newspapers, according to local news outlets tracking the issue. 

The spokesperson declined to say if it was a ransomware attack or if a ransom has been issued, writing they “cannot speculate on details that remain under investigation, and we will not be able to share information that could compromise our investigation or any investigation by law enforcement.”

The company noted that its newsrooms will also be covering the situation.

Lee Enterprises controls almost 350 digital platforms and print publications serving 72 markets in 25 states — including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Arizona Daily Star and several other well known local news outlets. The company reported a revenue of $145 million in the last quarter. 

The company also discussed the incident in a February 7 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), explaining that the cyberattack affected “certain business applications resulting in an operational disruption.”

Officials said recovery measures are being implemented and the impact on the company’s financial condition is being assessed. 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the company was initially attacked on Monday, February 3, and many of the news outlets were not able to access software used to build pages and publish stories. 

The newspaper said on Sunday that it has printed and delivered some back issues and “has not missed any days of publication, though most of the week’s editions were affected.”

“The newspaper was smaller on some days, for example, and comics and puzzles ran in different sections,” the Post-Dispatch said. 

Many of the Lee Enterprises newspapers released identical statements on their websites and in newspapers, but printing and publishing schedules differed among the local news outlets. Some only regained access to their systems on Friday while others recovered fairly quickly by the middle of the week. 

In September, the global wire service Agence France-Presse reported a cyberattack that caused widespread outages and issues for readers. 

News outlets like the New York Times and others across the globe have been targeted in recent months by hackers hoping to exploit their aversion to being knocked offline. A German radio station and Japanese media giant have both been attacked this month. In past years, News Corp, Nikkei, Impressa, Entercom, M6 and even the Weather Channel have dealt with cyber incidents.