New York Times: Chinese hackers attacked our computers for months

Updated at 1:24 p.m. ET

BEIJING Chinese hackers repeatedly penetrated The New York Times' computer systems over the past four months, stealing reporters' passwords and hunting for files on an investigation into the wealth amassed by the family of a top Chinese leader, the newspaper reported Thursday.

Security experts hired to investigate and plug the breach found that the attacks used tactics similar to ones used in previous hacking incidents traced to China, the report said. It said the hackers routed the attacks through computers at U.S. universities, installed a strain of malicious software, or malware, associated with Chinese hackers and initiated the attacks from Chinese university computers previously used by the Chinese military to attack U.S. military contractors.

The attacks, which began in mid-September, coincided with a Times investigation into how the relatives and family of Premier Wen Jiabao built a fortune worth over $2 billion. The report, which was posted online Oct. 25, embarrassed the Communist Party leadership, coming ahead of a fraught transition to new leaders and exposing deep-seated favoritism at a time when many Chinese are upset about a wealth gap.

Over the months of cyber-incursions, the hackers eventually lifted the computer passwords of all Times employees and used them to get into the personal computers of 53 employees.

The report said none of the Times' customer data was compromised and that information about the investigation into the Wen family remained protected, though it left unclear what data or communications the infiltrators accessed.

"Computer security experts found no evidence that sensitive emails or files from the reporting of our articles about the Wen family were accessed, downloaded or copied," the report quoted executive editor Jill Abramson as saying. A Times spokeswoman declined to comment further.

The Chinese foreign and defense ministries called the Times' allegations baseless, and the Defense Ministry denied any involvement by the military.

"Chinese law forbids hacking and any other actions that damage Internet security," the Defense Ministry said in a statement. "The Chinese military has never supported any hacking activities. Cyber-attacks are characterized by being cross-national and anonymous. To accuse the Chinese military of launching cyber-attacks without firm evidence is not professional and also groundless."

China has been accused by the U.S., other foreign governments and computer security experts of mounting a widespread, aggressive cyber-spying campaign for several years, trying to steal classified information and corporate secrets and to intimidate critics. Foreign reporters and news media, including The Associated Press, have been among the targets of attacks intended to uncover the identities of sources for news stories and to stifle critical reports about the Chinese government.

"Attacks on journalists based in China are increasingly aggressive, disruptive and sophisticated," said Greg Walton, a cyber-security researcher who has tracked Chinese hacking campaigns. China's cyber-spying efforts have excelled in part because of the government's "willingness to ignore international norms relating to civil society and media organizations," he said.

The Times reported that executives became concerned just before the publication of the Wen investigation after learning that Chinese officials had warned of unspecified consequences. Soon after the Oct. 25 publication, AT&T, which monitors the Times' computer networks, notified the company about activity consistent with a hacking attack, the report said.

After months of investigation by the computer security firm Mandiant, experts are still unsure how the hackers initially infiltrated the Times' computer systems, the report said.

[SeeBSnews4u]

The hacks got hacked lol

[hypnotoad72]

The article is discussing the NYT, not FOX...

[mjlewis6]

The only method that is successful at evading detection is one of submitting a virus/malware into the system not from outside, but INSIDE. Someone brought in a thumbdrive, whether clean or not, and it spread across several systems that were then attacked externally. Those systems were enabled for the penetration. Just a switch or augmentation of a thumbdrive while the operator slept at home or someone had his equipment at work penetrated during some other function. Employees do not even need to have known the agent who physically made the plant or penetration possible.

[buckn]

All I can say is that it feels good to live in a country where our intellegence gathering commuities don't hack into computers and the like.

[CarsonCitySteve]

Oh? Tell that to Iran.

[jefforsythe]

The brutal gangster Chinese Communist Party's leaders have all acquired huge fortunes from the blood of their people. Right now, there is an attempted genocide of the tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners by the use of torture, slavery, organ harvesting and murder. None of these atrocities are ever reported by Western media because of one thing. CORPORATE GREED. Thank you for your consideration.

[hypnotoad72]

China is our friend.

Communism is great or else American corporations taking our tax dollars wouldn't open up shop over there.

[iCi2i_befree]

Yep, China certainly underwrites our debt, but wasn't it Clinton who succeeded in securing "Most Favored Nation" trading status for this country? This has to be the absolute most unfavorable country to do business with of all our trading "partners". From human rights, opression of the Tibetans, environmental destruction, supporting neighborhood hot shots like North Korea, and holding a large thumb on any dissent of it's own people, China has lots going for it as a "Favored Nation". Now it's women folk are coming here to have their babies to avoid having to throw the child away (literally & figuratively)and getting a "born-in-the USA" stamp on it's rearend. Well, we spy on them too so whatever.

[hypnotoad72]

Actually, Reagan was the first to give it MFN status, and if a Democrat went to China instead of Nixon, we all know what you lot would whine about.

Try going back more than 15 years into history, please. You'll be shocked and awed.

[dh47]

Anything that The New York Times has to say, is probably a lie.
Blowhards, looking for headlines!

[167irishboy]

America will pay for generations thanks to George Bush Jr. taking loans to fund Iraq 1 from China and giving China free trade (no tariffs, that means cheap products produced with slave labor and cheap materials) with America.

There is no amount of errors or mistakes President Obama could make that would scratch the surface of the long term negative impact George Bush Jr. and Dick (boy did his parents name this guy correctly) Cheney will have on America.

[inketolstoy]

Don't count our current president out, Irishboy. He done amazing things in his first four years, and without something like 911 to distract him, I'm sure that he can have a much more negative impact than Bush did. The growth of the deficit under Obama makes Bush's war debt look almost understandable, and his use of executive orders to bypass congress and trampling of the Constitution already rival Bush's eight year highs. Different party, same ****.