Research by two Google security engineers has revealed that 21 of the world's top 25 news organizations have been the target of hacking attacks, which were likely government-sponsored, Reuters reports. Internet users in general are at risk for cyber-attacks via email meant to steal data, but journalists in particular were "massively over-represented" among targets.
There is not one, sole government responsible for this type of attack, but several from around the world. Chinese hackers recently tricked a "major Western news organization" (which they did not identify) using a fake survey sent to staff members. The Syrian Electronic Army, a pro-government group, has hacked Forbes and The New York Times in the past year.
Google security software engineer Shane Huntley said in interviews that the attacks in general were launched by hackers either working for, or in support of, some government, and targeted journalists specifically. Huntley and his co-author presented the paper of their findings at a Black Hat hackers conference in Singapore on Friday.
"If you're a journalist or a journalistic organization we will see state-sponsored targeting and we see it happening regardless of region, we see it from all over the world both from where the targets are and where the targets are from," Huntley told Reuters.
The list of what qualifies as a top-25 news organization is compiled by Alexa, a web information firm owned by Amazon, who ranks the companies according to web traffic. Nine of the top 25 organizations use Google for their email services. The researchers declined to explain the methodology behind Google's monitoring of these types of cyber-attacks, presumably for security purposes.
Source: Reuters