Journalists, Unite! Government-Sponsored Hackers Are Out to Get You
Google security engineers presented a paper on cyber attack priorities worldwide at a Black Hat conference of hackers in Singapore late last week, and the content of that paper has recently been elaborated upon through interviews with two of those engineers. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/us-media-cybercrime-idUSBREA2R0EU20140328
If you’re a regular blogger or you work in a journalist organization, take note! You have become the number 1 target of government-sponsored hackers from Syria, Russia, China, and dozens of similar sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL7RH_GA9FA
Many hack attacks go unreported, but according to the Google gurus, already reports from the most prominent news centers have hit, including reports from Forbes, the Financial Times, and the New York Times. http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-journalists-media-under-attack-from-hackers-google-researchers-1972976
Reasons for non-reporting go beyond protection of reputation to include simply lacking sophistication to recognize the attack. http://www.zdnet.com/unreported-cyberattacks-not-just-due-to-reputation-concerns-2062304140/
Reasons for targeting journalists of all ilks take no great leaps of logic to discern. The New York Times, for example, spent journalistic capital reporting on Anonymous over the past two years. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/anonymous_internet_group/ And the Times also took time to cover extensively the discovery of long-term Chinese hacking. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/technology/chinese-hackers-infiltrate-new-york-times-computers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Journalists obviously stand among other targets already known in security circles, such as Yahoo, which suffered a massive attack against a wide array of email accounts recently. http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/mass-hack-attack-on-yahoo-mail-accounts-prompts-password-reset/ Or NSA system administrators. http://www.matthewaid.com/post/80250413134/nsas-computer-hackers-have-designated-system
HFS analysts note that Google’s engineers, well respected in cyber security circles, spend their careers learning about the latest cyber threats, so bloggers, including HFS itself, must learn quickly to incorporate security habits in daily journalistic routines. All cyber citizens will face new threats to security as the infant Internet learns to walk.
What do you think?
