Cyber ​​attack on AFP, global news agency says it is working to analyze and manage the incident

Global news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) said on Saturday that it had detected an attack on its IT systems on Friday.

In a statement on its website, AFP said the attack on its IT systems had affected part of its delivery service to customers.

“It is not yet known who carried out this attack and why,” the news agency said.

AFP further explained that AFP's technical teams are working on the incident with the support of the French National Agency for IT Systems Security (ANSSI), adding: “The relevant authorities in France have been notified.”

“We are currently working to analyze and process this incident.”

However, the agency assured that the AFP newsroom and all its services continue to provide global coverage.

In August, French authorities said more than 140 cyberattacks were reported during the Paris Olympics, but none disrupted the competition.

Between July 26 and August 11, state cybersecurity agency Anssi recorded 119 reports of low-impact “security events” and 22 incidents in which “a malicious actor” successfully attacked a victim's information system.

The attacks mainly targeted government entities as well as sports, transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, the agency said.

According to Anssi, a third of this was downtime, half of which was due to denial of service attacks aimed at overloading servers.

Earlier this month, AP reported, citing an airport official, that hackers demanded $6 million in Bitcoin from the operator of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for documents they stole in a cyberattack last month and posted on the dark web this week.

However, the Port of Seattle, which owns and operates the airport, chose not to pay.

The airport previously linked the attack to a ransomware gang called Rhysida, but the FBI is now conducting a criminal investigation.

On September 13, Russian hacker groups briefly disrupted Taiwanese financial platforms, including the stock exchange and the website of lender Mega Financial Holding Co.