23.04.2024
An unknown attacker posted fictitious texts, which did not originate from CTK's production, on the CTK-operated news website Ceske noviny this morning, CTK spokeswoman Martina Vasickova said today.
"The attacker breached the security of the account of the publishing system of the Ceske noviny website, but the news service of CTK, which the agency distributes to its clients, was not affected," she said.
On eof the fictious texts in Czech was headlined „BIS zabranila pokusu o atentat na nove zvoleneho slovenskeho prezidenta Petera Pellegriniho“ (BIS thwarted an attempt to assassinate Slovak president-elect Peter Pellegrini) and the other was a fictitious extraordinary statement by Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky on the same subject. The attacker posted it on the Ceske noviny website in Czech and English. The disinformation was also published with the relevant notifications on the Ceske noviny mobile app.
"CTK has not published any information of this wording in its news service. The news has been removed from the Ceske noviny website and the accesses blocked," Vasickova said.
She said CTK was communicating with the civilian counterintelligence service (BIS), the National Office for Cyber and Information Security (NUKIB) and the police about the attack. "We will not provide further information for the moment," she added.
"We know about the hacker attack on CTK and are ready to provide maximum cooperation," the NUKIB said on the X network.
CTK publishes about 15 percent of the content of its news service on the news website Ceske noviny. The full news service is available on CTK's Infobank, and the agency also delivers it to media and non-media clients through other distribution channels.