The New York Times says that it has repeatedly come under the attack of Chinese hackers over the last four months, reports the BBC. The newspaper says that the attacks coincided with a report it ran which claimed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune. Jiabao was not accused of wrongdoing but according to the BBC, China is sensitive about reports on its leaders’ wealth.
The attacks on the major US newspaper started with the hacking of David Barboza’s account, the paper’s bureau chief in Shanghai who wrote the report, along with the account of one of his predecessors. The hackers went on to retrieve the password of every New York Times employee and gain access to any computer in the paper’s network along with 53 personal computers, most of which were outside the Times offices.
Once discovered, the paper hired internet security firm Mandiant to trace the attack. The firm believes the initial breach may have been through a spear-phishing attack, where an employee clicked on an email or link containing malicious code. It also found that the tactics the hackers used were consistent with other attacks it had traced to China.
Although the accusations have been dismissed as “groundless” by China’s foreign ministry, several governments, companies and organisations have accused the Chinese of systematic cyber espionage for years.
See the full story on BBC.co.uk
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the latest victim of social media hijacking after several of its Facebook accounts were hacked into. False status updates were posted on various teams’ pages, all of which are managed by Major League Baseball Advanced Media. 
Reuters has seen one of its Twitter accounts compromised just 48 hours after it discovered that Syrian cybercriminals had allegedly hacked its blogging platform. The culprits, presumably the same group in both instances, are President Bashar al-Assad loyalists and have been using Reuters’ credibility to get anti-rebel messages out. 
Last week, LinkedIn became the latest social media company to endure a major security breach after more than six million of its users’ passwords were stolen and posted by hackers on a Russian web forum, inviting other hackers to help decrypt them. 
