Swiss, German-Language Newspaper NZZ Shut Down Production

The “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” continues to struggle with problems two weeks after a cyberattack on its computers. The publisher shut down central systems for newspaper production and had to pre-produce the Saturday edition on Thursday of last week. The company announced on Saturday that this “exceptional situation” was also associated with a reduction in scope.

Due to the cyberattack, some systems and services are still not available. NZZ's IT team is working with external specialists on corrective measures, it said. Newspapers from CH-Media-Verlag, which obtains IT services from NZZ, also appeared on a reduced basis over the weekend.

A ransomware attack on the infrastructure of NZZ's parent, NZZ Mediengruppe in Zürich, became known two weeks ago. 500GB data stolen from this was later published on the dark web.

Additional impact at three media companies:
On May 3, CH Media confirmed that data had been published, saying, “initial analyses show that the data is from our delivery organisations”.
The Blick Group is affected as a company that belongs to CH Media is responsible for the postal delivery of the Blick newspapers, and is directly affected by the cyber attack.
Customer data from Tamedia newspapers is also said to be affected

Estimated Cost

Production disrupted, 500GB data published

Threat Source

Impacts

OT IT