Newsquest, the second largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the UK, has been targeted by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

The actions have crippled Newsquest websites and content management systems, rendering journalists unable to upload their stories. 

The attack commenced on Monday and persisted throughout Tuesday, causing a cascade of disruptions that continue into today. A DDoS attack aims to disrupt a website by overwhelming it with internet traffic. 

“DDoS attacks often don’t get as much publicity as ransomware today, but that doesn’t make them any less severe,” said William Wright, CEO of Closed Door Security.

“They knock a website offline by flooding it with traffic, which makes it inaccessible and inoperable,” continued Ryan McConechy, CTO of Barrier Networks.

“In some cases, they are used to hide a data breach, while some attacks are carried out purely with the motivation of putting an organisation out of operation.”

A message posted on the Southern Daily Echo, which was affected by the attack, addressed the issue, and explained that no reader or subscriber data had been compromised. 

Newsquest’s response to the cyber-attack involves collaboration with the National Cyber Security Centre and the Gannett Cybersecurity Incident Response team, marking the incident as a major business continuity event. The company is actively working to mitigate the effects of the attack and restore normalcy to its digital operations.

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“The attack highlights the importance of IoT security because IoT devices are often recruited into botnets to execute DDoS attacks. Organisations must embed IoT devices into their corporate security programs and assess and test them continuously for vulnerabilities,” continued Wright. 

According to Picus Security, 25% of cyber-incidents submitted to the FCA in the first half of 2022 involved a DDoS attack, compared to 4% in 2021.

Globally, there were a staggering 7.9 million DDoS attacks reported globally, according to Netscout. This is a 31% jump on the same period in 2022, showing a growing trend for this attack method. 

“The best way to detect DDoS attacks is through the use of technology which monitors web traffic and identifies unexpected peaks. When high volumes of traffic are detected, this can be investigated, and blocked if necessary, stopping the DDoS attack in its tracks,” concluded McConechy.