The Washington Post has confirmed it was attacked by a hacker group based in China at the weekend, following the revelation late last week that several leading US publications, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, suffered similar attacks.
In an article in The Washington Post, the newspaper revealed key details of the attack.
“The cyber attack targeted The Post’s main information technology server and several other computers, said people familiar with the incident who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe details the company did not release publicly,” the newspaper states.
“These people said that sensitive administrative passwords likely were compromised, giving hackers potentially wide-ranging access to The Post’s systems before the computers were taken offline and enhanced monitoring was put in place to prevent a recurrence. It was not clear what information, if any, was stolen by the hackers.”
Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm used by the paper, has provided a possible motive for the attacks.
“[Chinese government hackers] want to know who the sources are, who in China is talking to the media… They want to understand how the media is portraying them — what they’re planning and what’s coming,” Mandiant vice-president Grady Summers says.
This piece first appeared on SmartCompany.
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
