Several Washington Post journalists covering China had their committed email accounts on a suspect Ciberataque, who may have been carried out by a foreign government, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Failure, which affected Microsoft’s email accounts, offered intruders accessing intruders to the content of journalist work emails, including messages sent and received, reported the newspaper, quoting people who know the subject.
Noteworthy goals include members of the security and economic policies of the site that covers China.
In a note sent to the staff on Sunday, the executive publisher of Washington Post, Matt Murray, warned of a “possible unauthorized intrusion in our email system” and said that the company believes that “a limited number of reporters’ accounts were affected”.
According to the note, breach was discovered on Thursday evening and is now being performed.
Murray, who previously managed a similar security breach while serving as a publisher in Chief of the Magazine, also stated that “we do not believe that this unauthorized intrusion affected any additional system or had any impact on our customers.”
According to the newspaper, the Ciberatact -affected employees were notified in recent days and said they did not discuss the matter publicly, according to the magazine.
Law officials and cybersecurity experts told the magazine that journalists are common goals for the pirates of the Nation State, which aims to collect sensitive information through their communications with sources.
These operations often involve sophisticated surveillance tools and are sometimes related to intelligence collection efforts by foreign governments.
By 2022, the magazine reported that the pirates had violated the systems of their matrix company, News Corp, which dated at least by the beginning of 2020.
This attack, which also addressed journalists, allowed unauthorized access to emails, documents and drafts of articles.
A News Corp cybersecurity consultant concluded that breach “probably intended to bring intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” and said that attackers seemed focused on issues such as Taiwan and China’s Uigur ethnic group.
News Corp is the Matrix company of the New York Post.
Instead, the Washington Post Hack seems to have a more limited reach, according to people who know the current research.
It is believed that intruders have only accessed email accounts.
The journalists in the document said that they normally prevent the placement of sensitive material for emails, instead of relying on internal tools such as slack and safe messaging platforms as signal to communicate with colleagues and sources.
In response to breach, the Washington Post has implemented additional cybersecurity measures, including the obligation of a reset of login credentials.
Microsoft, whose software was oriented to intrusion, refused to comment when the newspaper contacted.
As the investigation continues, it is still unclear who was behind the attack or what information would have been accessed.
However, the incident emphasizes the continuous vulnerability of media organizations in the face of cyber threats, particularly those that involve geopolitical reports.
The New York Post has sought comments from Microsoft and The Washington Post.
The Washington Post has been involved in the continued crisis since the end of 2022, when it began to deal with strong web traffic decreases, digital subscriptions and advertising revenue.
These challenges triggered internal measures of cost reduction, including the arrest of popular sections and called into question the company’s digital strategy.
By 2023, Fred Ryan publisher was under fire and was replaced by Will Lewis, as the leadership sought to see the boat.
The tensions were climbed in the fall of 2024 after the billionaire owner Jeff Bezos had intervened by Spike a planned editorial guarantees of Kamala Harris, causing a decryer of the subscribers and the resignation of key editorial voices.
The discomfort continued until January 2025, when the Pulitzer Prize winner, Ann Telnaes, resigned from the protest after a satirical cartoon drawing was rejected addressed to the main technological executives, including Bezos.
In the spring of 2025, the work was affected by a wave of large profile outings, including the publisher Matea Gold and prominent journalists Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Michael Scherer.
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