Description

Lee Enterprises, a major U.S. newspaper publisher, is alerting nearly 40,000 individuals about a data breach that exposed sensitive personal information during a ransomware attack in February 2025. The company, which publishes 77 daily newspapers and hundreds of weekly publications across 26 states, disclosed in a filing with the Maine Attorney General’s Office that 39,779 people may have had their names and Social Security numbers accessed without authorization. The breach occurred on February 3 and led to widespread disruptions, including network shutdowns and delays in newspaper printing and delivery. The cyberattack significantly impacted operations, disabling internal systems, corporate VPNs, and cloud storage. Lee Enterprises later confirmed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that critical applications were encrypted and certain files exfiltrated in the ransomware incident. Though the company hasn’t officially attributed the attack to any group, the Qilin ransomware gang claimed responsibility shortly after the breach. The group alleged it had stolen 350 GB of data roughly 120,000 documents and threatened to leak the information if their demands were not met. On February 28, Qilin added Lee Enterprises to its dark web leak site, sharing samples of stolen data that reportedly included government ID scans, financial documents, contracts, and non-disclosure agreements. A spokesperson for Lee Enterprises stated that the company is aware of the reported data leak and is currently conducting an active investigation to verify the legitimacy of the stolen information. This incident follows a 2020 breach in which Iranian hackers accessed the company’s systems as part of an election-related disinformation campaign.