Hacker infiltrates Czech News Agency's website, posts fake news
On Tuesday morning, an unknown attacker managed to publish two fake news articles in both Czech and English on the Czech News Agency's (ČTK) news website, České noviny. Users of the mobile app also received notifications about the false reports.
However, the fake information did not make its way into the news service subscribed to by the public agency's clients. "I was immediately informed by the General Director, Jaroslav Kábele, that the ČTK news service was not compromised, nor was the system as a whole breached," David Soukup, the chairman of the ČTK Council, which oversees the agency's activities, wrote on social media platform X.
The fabricated reports were removed from the České noviny website. "The attacker breached the security of an account in the České noviny website's publishing system," said ČTK spokesperson Martina Vašíčková. "The articles were removed from the České noviny website, and access has been blocked," she added.
The first fake news claimed that the Czech Security Information Service successfully prevented an assassination attempt on the newly elected Slovak president, Peter Pellegrini. The second fabricated text posed as an extraordinary statement by Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský on the same event.
Even on Tuesday afternoon, archived copies of the fake reports could still be found in search engine caches, which managed to index them. For example, users of the Czech version of the MSN portal, which offers content from the České noviny server, could read them.
Due to the attack, ČTK is in contact with the police, the Security Information Service, and the National Cyber and Information Security Agency. "We are aware of the hacker attack on ČTK and are ready to provide maximum cooperation," the national cyber agency confirmed.
The made-up texts resembled actual ČTK news reporting only at first glance. Upon closer reading, it was clear that they lacked the standard requisites and structure of an editorial article from the public news agency. There were also errors in names or Czech stylistics.
On the České noviny website, ČTK publishes about 15 percent of the content from its news service. The complete news service is available in a system for clients. The agency also delivers it to media and non-media clients through other distribution channels.
