Hackers from China are believed to be behind a cyberattack on News Corp. in which the emails and documents of several employees were accessed.
Employees at several businesses run by News Corp., the media corporation owned by conservative mogul Rupert Murdoch, were affected by a Jan. 20 cyberattack, Chief Communications Director James Kennedy confirmed to the Washington Examiner in a copy of an email sent out to employees Friday morning. The affected businesses include the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, News UK, the New York Post, News Technology Services, and the News Corp. headquarters.
“News Corp discovered attack activity on a system used by several of our business units,” the email said. “As soon as we discovered the activity, we notified U.S. law enforcement and launched an investigation with the assistance of Mandiant — a leading cybersecurity firm.”
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A preliminary analysis indicates that a “foreign government may be associated” with the threat in which a large portion of News Corp. employees saw their emails and documents targeted, the email said.
“Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus and believes they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” the News Corp. email said.
The cybersecurity firm confirmed China’s believed connection to the attack, telling the Washington Examiner, “Mandiant assesses that those behind this activity have a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests.”
But News Corp. believes “the vast majority of our people’s emails and documents were not the target of this attack activity,” the email said. The company did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s question about why it believes these emails were not the target.
The company believes its other businesses, such as HarperCollins Publishers, Move, News Corp Australia, Foxtel, REA, and Storyful, were not affected by the cyberattack, the email to employees said.
News Corp. has not experienced any interruptions regarding its day-to-day business operations, and the company believes the attack has been contained, according to the email.
“We take seriously any attack on our organization and our employees, including our journalists,” the email from News Corp. said, adding the company “promptly took steps to contain the activity and our investigation to date indicates that the systems housing customer and financial data were not affected.”
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News Corp., one of two companies owned by Murdoch, is currently being managed by CEO Robert Thompson. Fox Corp., which owns Fox News and the Fox Broadcast network, is the other company owned by the Murdoch family.
Murdoch’s son James announced in July 2020 that he was resigning from the Board of Directors, citing “disagreements” over the editorial content published. James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, each donated roughly $615,000 to the Democratic National Committee and President Joe Biden‘s joint fundraising venture.
