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State-sponsored Hackers Targeting Prominent Journalists, Google Warns (politico.com)
State-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal email passwords of a number of prominent journalists, Google has warned. The hackers are suspected to be Russians, reports POLITICO. Some of the journalists who have received such warnings from Google as recent as two-to-three weeks ago include Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, Julia Ioffe, who recently started at The Atlantic, Ezra Klein of Vox, and CNN's Brian Stelter. From the report: "The fact that all this started right after the election suggests to me that journalists are the next wave to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers in the way that Democrats were during it," said one journalist who got the warning. "I worry that the outcome is going to be the same: Someone, somewhere, is going to get hacked, and then the contents of their Gmail will be weaponized against them -- and by extension all media."
Just amazing the reach of Russian hackers. First, they managed to get the DNC & Hillary Clinton to write thousands of self-incriminating (and on Hillary's side, remarkably foul-mouthed - or is it foul-keyboarded?) emails. Then they suborned the DNC to steal the nomination from Sanders and give it to Clinton, to give Trump an easier opponent. Next they induced a DNC staffer named Seth Rich to steal the compromising emails and give them to Wikileaks, which dutifully publishes them, showing the DNC to be corrupt and Hillary to be venal. Then they managed to get Rich to set himself up for a mugging in which he is shot twice in the head but nothing is stolen. Then they manipulated the Director of the FBI to announce just before the election that many, many thousands of emails potentially involving Hillary have been found and need to be examined. And finally, they finessed the US intelligence community into believing he hacked those DNC computers to influence the election, thereby concealing - and taking off the discussion table - any examination of the DNC's & Hillary's wrongdoing.
I heard that they found the cell-phone-smashing sledge hammer in Putin's basement!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Nonsense. This is just more fake news from a bunch of snowflake libertards seeking to illegitimize our great president, The Honorable William J. Le Petomane.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I just have a really hard time believing the Russian hacker narrative. Can't explain why. Maybe it seems too convenient for the DNC.
... and there's nothing unprofessional in them, the more embarrassing some personal stuff may be the more sympathy you'll get from the public and against the hackers.
On the other hand if the emails reveal unethical behavior, collusion with one party or one particular candidate of the party that goes against the journalistic integrity, then what I can tell you. Be a better professional.
... Gmail.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Wow, I wish I had Russian genetics. They seem to be able to do all the really big scary computer stuff that us non-russians are not capable of doing. I am not trying to denegrate Russians here, but the media is so incredibly naive. It is as if putting "Russian" in front of it, no matter the evidence, turns the so called hack into something mysterious, huge, and scary.
Most of the so called hacks, are simply social engineering and phishing scams. The Podesta thing could have been done by any old graphic designer that just made a nice looking "official" password reset email. I am really quite disappointed at what passes for a hack these days. In fact, if a Russian spat on someones shoe, the headline would probably be "Russians hack shoes".
Yes, Russia does have many brilliant developers. But they also are a historic safe haven for VPN services. Of course most attacks "originate" from such areas. Anybody with half a brain knows you don't do something nefarious online without redirecting your trail through territories that are not friendly to your home's prosecutors.
I think the media owes it to every self respecting programmer to start narrowing the definition of "hack". Did they use a man in the middle to fraudulently update a software package? That might be a hack... Did they cause the buffer to overflow in some C program, exposing information contained in parts of the memory? Ok, that is a hack too. I can think of lots of scenarios where hacks could take place.
But... if they simply sent an email asking someone to put in their existing password and tricked some tech-illiterate into doing something stupid, that is not a hack.
Gossip is news???? Shit article.
Some consumer brand of email gives users a colourful message and its a Russian warning?
Words like "suspect"? then "have to guess that it’s the Russians"?
If the company changes the "big bright red bar" to any another color would that feeling be altered?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I know - you figure Russia is too technically backwards to mount such an attack (despite being the first nation to put a satellite or a human in orbit). Or a nation steeped in the tradition of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky could never do such things (despite their attempt to put nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba). Or is it that our Glorious Leader has decreed that Russia's okay, so this couldn't possibly be true? Oh, wait - that's Divine leader, isn't it?
These people haven't had anything of substance to say for years.
These aren't journalists, they're hardcore leftists faking yet another incident. The alleged "targets" are just too in line with their narrative.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.