New York Newspaper Can’t Print Sunday’s Paper Due to Ransomware

Watertown Daily Times of New York Unable to Print Sunday’s Paper After Ransomware Infection

The Watertown Daily Times, a daily newspaper published in Watertown, New York was targeted by cybercriminals over the weekend. Hackers were able to access the newspaper’s networks and infect their systems with the ransomware variant, Ryuk. The cyber attack, which officials became aware of on Saturday afternoon, restricted the organization’s ability to publish its print edition on Sunday. Although the IT staff worked quickly to isolate the incident, staff found their servers and computer systems infected, and files encrypted.

Since the computers and the server was affected by the virus, the main sections of The Watertown Daily Times, sports and Sunday Weekly could not be printed on Saturday night. However, some sections of the newspaper, printed in advance, were delivered to subscribers.

The news agency confirmed that their IT officials worked late night on Saturday to build a new server, but there was no time to print the morning newspaper.

Other Attacks

For a list of ransomware attacks that have already taken place in 2019, you may click here. We have also created a map, see below, of the ransomware attacks that have taken place in the U.S.