Finnish news agency STT said it took some of its systems offline on Friday following a malicious attack.

STT told Yle it was investigating the possibility of an information leak, with STT CEO Kimmo Laaksonen saying the organisation had been in touch with the authorities since the breach.

It's not uncommon for hackers to home in on media organisations. Last year Norwegian media company Amedia suffered a cyber attack that shut down its computer systems, preventing the publication of its newspapers.

Panu Tuunala, STT's managing editor, said the agency has been upping its preparedness to deal with potential cyber attacks.

"Over the past six months we have become increasingly aware of the fact that we may be targeted. We've taken note of attacks on agencies like ours throughout Europe. In that sense this was expected," he told Yle.

Tuunala said it was still unclear who was responsible for the attack and whether hackers stole any data.

Finnish authorities have been warning of an increased risk of cyber attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

In May, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom warned that Finland's Nato membership application could increase cybersecurity threats from Russia. This warning came after the websites of Finland's defence and foreign affairs ministries were hit by denial of service attacks in April, coinciding with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to the Finnish Parliament.

Yle subscribes to the Finnish news agency.