During the last four months computers on The New York Times newspaper office networks have been persistently attacked by hacking attempts said to originate from China. The timing of the attacks coincides with the wrapping up of research by investigative reporter David Barboza and the publishing of an in-depth report presenting his findings. The subject of Barboza’s investigation was the accumulated personal and family wealth of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Reports say that the hackers were looking for the names and details of the story’s sources.
David Barboza’s report, published last October was entitled “Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader”. In Wen Jaibao’s own words, during childhood “my family was extremely poor”. Now this same family has wealth equivalent to billions of US dollars which seem to coincide with Wen’s leadership. None of this looks very good, particularly in a communist country, so it would be understandable if the Chinese PM and his allies were a bit miffed over the exposure.
The investigative article was also published in Chinese
Around the same time as the publishing of the investigative piece, computer system operatives at the NYT noticed “unusual activity” and shortly after this security firm Mandiant were hired to look into the matter. Importantly, “Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive e-mails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied,” said Jill Abramson, executive editor of The Times. So in that respect the hacks have been unsuccessful so far.
To disguise the origin of the hacking attempts, attacks were initially made though compromised computers at US universities. Malware was placed on the NYT networks from this route. The hackers managed to successfully steal “corporate passwords” of every NYT employee and gain access to the office PCs of 53 employees, however most of them were outside of the newsroom. The newspaper is quite certain that the origin of the attacks was from China following its investigations.
The NYT confronted China’s Ministry of National Defense about the hacking activity and got a reply saying “Chinese laws prohibit any action including hacking that damages Internet security.” Indignantly, it added “to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless.”
The New York Times has successfully shut up shop, against this recent spate of hacking attacks, but Mandiant’s chief security officer, Richard Bejtlich expects that “This is not the end of the story” and that the intruders will be back.
