Inkyfada, an electronic magazine investigating Tunisian involvement in the so-called Panama Papers, came under attack by hackers on Tuesday just hours after its first postings on the scandal.
“Our site has come under a serious IT attack. The hackers have managed to post false information under our name,” it said on Twitter, adding that it was being temporarily taken offline.
Monia Ben Hamadi, editorial chief of Inkyfada, told AFP that the false reports had been identified but not the hackers. “The attack was orchestrated from several places,” she said.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a statement, condemned the cyber-attack which it said showed “how investigative journalism still causes fear” in Tunisia following its 2011 revolution.
Several countries have vowed to open tax evasion investigations following the leak of 11.5 million confidential documents in the Panama Papers scandal.
The vast stash from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca was obtained from an anonymous source by German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared with more than 100 media groups by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which published their first findings on Sunday.