Hackers steal data from Swiss magazine Republik

Hackers steal user data from the online magazine "Republik" Keystone-SDA

Swiss online magazine Republik has fallen victim to a cyberattack. The magazine says user data was compromised, but no credit card details were leaked.

Unknown individuals exploited a security vulnerability in an analytics tool.

On Wednesday morning, one of the analysis tools had stopped working, according to a statement on the Republik website. It marked the end of an unauthorised access incident that had been ongoing since August.

“The security vulnerability had been known since August 6, but we failed to take the necessary countermeasures in good time,” the statement reads.

Republik does not know who was behind the attack. There is much to suggest it was a broad, automated wave of attacks. The attackers are said to have first searched for what was contained in every Metabase installation – the tool with the security vulnerability – such as login details and keys for AI services that could be resold.

So far, there is no indication that anyone specifically targeted Republik. However, the data has been leaked. The attackers certainly accessed the details of active publishers, subscribers, newsletter recipients and all former users.

The data records included email addresses, names and, where provided, telephone numbers, year of birth and gender. This means that people who never had a subscription but merely subscribed to a newsletter were also affected.

When the Metabase was taken offline, the attackers also lost their access, Republik added. On Thursday, following the completion of the initial damage assessment, the magazine reported the incident to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.