For the past four months, Chinese hackers have been relentlessly attacking The New York Times.
In October 2012, the New York Times published an article detailing the wealth of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Chinese authorities blocked both the English and Chinese versions of the website.
However, as it turns out, China didn't just stop at online censorship. Shortly after the article was published, cybercriminals likely based in China began stealing the passwords of Times employees with the help of malware.
The Times uses Symantec to protect its systems from cyberattacks, but the security solutions were able to detect only one of the malware that had entered the company's systems, while 45 different malware could not be successfully detected.
After some time, the newspaper managed to block the hackers. The paradox is that while they had access to the company's systems, the attackers could have caused some very serious damage. They could have gained access to a lot of sensitive information or even shut down the Times' systems completely.
However, evidence suggests that the hackers only dealt with information related to the article published about Premier Wen Jiabao.
In order to cover their tracks, the hackers used several computers located at various US universities and from Internet service providers.
The New York Times hired the security firm Mandiant to investigate the incident. An initial report from the firm says the attackers appear to be related to the Chinese military.
China's Ministry of National Defense, of course, denies the accusations, claiming that the country's law prohibits such attacks.
