Official: FBI probing cyber breach of NY Times journalists
WASHINGTON >> The FBI is investigating cyber intrusions targeting reporters of The New York Times and is looking into whether Russian intelligence agencies are responsible for the acts, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The cyberattacks are believed to have targeted individual reporters, but investigators don’t believe the newspaper’s whole network was affected, according to the official, who was briefed on the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A Times spokeswoman said Tuesday evening that no internal systems had been compromised.
We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised.
CNN first reported the FBI’s investigation.
It was not immediately clear how many reporters may have been affected, or how many email accounts were targeted.
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The news comes as federal authorities continue to investigate a breach of the Democratic National Committee that outside cybersecurity experts have attributed to Russian intelligence agencies and that led to the posting of embarrassing internal emails. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democratic entities have also been affected.
Earlier this month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi advised fellow Democrats not to allow family members to answer their phones or read incoming texts after a mix of personal and official information of Democratic members and hundreds of congressional staff — purportedly from a hack of the DCCC — was posted online.
New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy would not confirm the FBI’s investigation, but said, “We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised.”
Earlier, Murphy said: “Like most news organizations we are vigilant about guarding against attempts to hack into our systems. There are a variety of approaches we take up to and including working with outside investigators and law enforcement.”
