Rheinische Post Mediengruppe: Still in emergency mode after cyber attack

The websites of the media of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe are apparently only usable to a limited extent following a cyber attack. The printed newspapers are also affected. The websites of the media of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe are still only usable to a limited extent. Interested parties can currently view a slimmed-down ticker, which primarily publishes news from dpa. The Group's IT service provider is also no longer available online.

As reported by WDR, the cyber attack has even had an impact on the company's printed newspapers. The newspaper editions on Monday were published as emergency editions with 28 pages. The newspapers affected include Rheinische Post, General-Anzeiger in Bonn, Aachener Nachrichten, Saarbrücker Zeitung and Trierischer Volksfreund.

Cyber attack leads to technical disruptions at IT service provider

The cyber attack on Friday evening caused technical problems at the IT service provider of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, Circ IT, which affected the websites. The company then took the websites offline itself. According to WDR, no damage was caused and no data was stolen. Those responsible for the cyber attack are still unknown.

It is currently not known whether this is a ransomware attack and, if so, what ransom demand is associated with it.

Impending disaster due to single point of failure

As was recently observed in attacks on health insurance companies, the dependence of certain services on a single service provider led to longer outages. In view of the increasing frequency of cyber attacks, security concepts should ideally provide alternatives for each step of the process flow, in the sense of a contingency concept.