New York Times target of Chinese hacker attack
The New York Times has been the target of a massive cyberattack originating in China. The newspaper reported Thursday, citing IT security experts, that the passwords of all its employees had been stolen.
The attackers then gained access to the computers of 53 Times employees. The attack in the fall coincided with work on a report about the wealth of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's family. The article, published on October 25, stated that Wen's relatives had amassed a fortune of several billion dollars. The attackers only seem to have been interested in information related to the report, the newspaper wrote. The New York Times computer system has since been made secure again.
The Chinese government rejected the accusations. The NYT's accusations were "groundless", said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei in Beijing on Thursday. "To say without hard evidence that China participates in such hacking attacks is completely irresponsible." The Ministry of Defense expressed a similar view, emphasizing: "The military has never supported any hacker attacks."
There are repeated reports of hacker attacks on companies and authorities in the USA. China always rejects the accusations. (SDA)
