Website down two days due to hacker
The Lariat’s web site, lariatnews.com, was offline for two days earlier this week following a cyberattack that took down its server.
According to spokesperson Lara Hansen, a database at College Publisher was hacked by an unknown Russian entity. About 100 college web sites using the CP5 platform are believed to have been effected. An older version of the platform still in use at some campuses was not affected.
Hansen said that technicians have restored lariatnews.com, but most of the last three weeks of material has been lost. She said she hoped the company would be able to restore most of that as soon as possible.
The attack began at approximately 7 p.m. Wednesday night and quickly shutdown the online administration area where student reporters and editors post material. On it’s Web site today (Feb. 5), College Publisher said the attack made it necessary to install new hardware. The site said the main goal for technicians was to get the system up and running and that the company will continue to work on the problem of missing material.
“We realize this is a less-than-ideal situation,” an update on the CP site said.
According to a bio on its Web site, College Publisher, a subsidiary of MTV, was started by three college students in 1999. It has grown to host more than 750 community colleges, four-year colleges and university online versions of student publications. Based in New York, CP offers its services free to campuses in exchange for advertising it posts on each site.
The Lariat joined the CP Network and began posting on lariatnews.com about three years ago.