Balz Rigendinger reports on a recent attack by the PLAY ransomware group:
In mid-May, a stolen data set appeared on the darknet. The content was information about subscribers to Swiss Review.This is a federal government magazine that keeps Swiss citizens abroad up to date on developments in their home country.
The data set is comprehensive. It currently contains over 425,000 addresses, 40% of which are postal and 60% email addresses. Anyone who is registered in Switzerland as a citizen resident abroad automatically receives Swiss Review – either by email or by post. According to the foreign ministry, only 330,000 of the 800,000 Swiss Abroad do not receive Swiss Review – among them, Italian-speaking Swiss.
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But how could this have happened? Put simply, the 425,000 addresses of the Swiss Abroad are by-products of a blackmail attack on two Swiss publishing houses, the NZZ publishing group and CH Media. The two publishers’ digital infrastructures are networked with each other.
Read more at SwissInfo.ch