Â鶹´«Ã½ and other North Carolina newspapers are among 72 Lee Enterprises Inc. newspapers affected by a "cybersecurity event" that hampered operations for several days this week, the chain's president and chief executive said Friday in a memo to employees.
The Davenport, Iowa-based chain disclosed in its first-quarter regulatory filing Friday that a technology outage that began Monday was "due to a cyber incident affecting certain business applications, resulting in an operational disruption."
Kevin Mowbray said in the memo the company'sÌýtechnology response team "has been working with third-party specialists to fully restore our systems and investigate the nature of these disruptions."
"Unfortunately, our investigation has determined that the situation was the result of a cybersecurity event," Mowbray said. "We are now focused on determining what informationÌý— if anyÌý— may have been affected by the situation. We are working to complete this investigation as quickly and thoroughly as possible. We have notified law enforcement of the situation."
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According to the filing, Lee "is actively investigating the incident, implementing recovery measures and assessing the potential impact on its operations, financial condition and internal controls."
"As of the date of this filing, the company has not identified any impact that is material; however, the evaluation remains ongoing."
Besides the News Herald, Lee owns and operates the following newspapers in North Carolina: the Greensboro News & Record; the Winston-Salem Journal; the Hickory Daily Record; the Independent Tribune (Concord); McDowell News (Marion); Mooresville Tribune; Statesville Record and Landmark; and Rockingham Now (Reidsville).
The disruptions prevented the News Herald and other newsrooms from delivering print newspapers as scheduled this week.Ìý
Meanwhile, the News Herald and other markets continued to post the latest news on their websites and mobile apps.Ìý
"We've been covering our communities this week like we always do, but it's been a fight to bring all our content to our print readers," saidÌýDimon Kendrick-Holmes, North Carolina editor for Lee Enterprises.Ìý
He said he and his staff have received many messages of encouragement like this one from Friday night: "Please know this daily reader appreciates your work and is rooting for you. The free press has never been more important than it is now. Hang in there."
During the outage, some subscribers have been unable to access their accounts or make changes to them, and Lee has been unable to operate as usual in other ways.
Mowbray's memo did not indicate when the problems would be fixed.
Mowbray told employees he could not speculate on details because the incident is under investigation, "and we will not be able to share information that could compromise our investigation or any investigation by law enforcement."
He added that the company is working to "identify and implement any additional steps we can take to help prevent something like this from happening again."
Mowbray thanked employees "for your above-and-beyond efforts to continue reporting the news and maintaining our operations under challenging circumstances."
Lee Enterprises owns news outlets across 24 states, along with marketing services, digital publications and weekly and specialty publications.
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