Experts suspect China behind cyberattacks against US organisations
Feb 11, 2022
Washington [US], February 11 : A US media organisation is investigating a cyberattack that has accessed the organisation's email and documents of some of its employees and journalists, according to a media report.
On Friday media giant News Corp, whose entities include The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, sent an internal email to staff stating that it had been the target of "persistent nation-state attack activity", according to Voice of America (VOA).
David Kline, News Corp chief technology officer, wrote in the email that on January 20, the organisation discovered attack activity on a system used by several of our business units.
The organisation said that it notified law enforcement soon after the attack was detected and launched an investigation with the help of Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm.
A limited number of business email accounts and documents from News Corp headquarters as well as its News Technology Services, Dow Jones, News UK and New York Post businesses were affected by the cyberattack, according to VOA.
Kline informed that the preliminary information indicated towards the possibility of the involvement of the foreign government.
"Our preliminary analysis indicates that foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that some data was taken," Kline wrote. The chief technological officer also stated that attacks on journalism will not be tolerated.
Dave Wong, Mandiant vice president and incident responder, said that Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China's interests, according to VOA.
Wong's suspicion echoed that of human rights groups, which have also faced an increase in cyberattacks thought to originate from a "foreign government" they also believe is China, said the US-based publication.
"Cyberspace has become a battleground for the Uyghur people. The level of surveillance occurring in China against Uyghurs extends well beyond their borders and has fully entered the digital realm," stated Volexity, a Washington-based cybersecurity firm, in a September 2019 blog post.
"Recently, especially starting from January 10, 2022, we have seen more cyberattacks by unknown hackers aimed at the main index of English and Chinese websites of Uyghur Times," said Tahir Imin, an Uyghur activist and founder of Uyghur Times. He also informed that his organization's email server had also been the target of similar attacks.
