Washington Post Hackers Steal Passwords

Major media outlet the Washington Post has admitted a breach of its servers, compromising employee usernames and passwords were stolen.

It is not clear how much company data was stolen, but all workers have been told to change their logins to company servers. Passwords were encrypted, but the Washington Post warned about the potential for password cracking.

Washington Post breached again

It does not appear that financial data of website visitors was stolen, not were publishing systems affected.

An initial breach of a server used by foreign staff was followed by hacks of other company servers.

“This is an ongoing investigation, but we believe it was a few days at most,” said Post spokesperson Kris Coratti.

The Post has been the subject of numerous breaches in recent years, including one in 2011 linked to Chinese hackers. The Syrian Electronic Army managed to redirect site visitors to the hacking group’s own page. China is yet again suspected in this latest hack.

“Even if China is identified as the starting point of an attack – it doesn’t necessarily prove that the hack was backed by the Chinese government or intelligence services. It could just as easily be a group of skilled, patriotic Chinese hackers upset with how the US media portrays its government,” security expert Graham Cluley said in a blog post.

“But let’s not be too naive. In all probability, this attack was sanctioned by Beijing. Although some conspiracy theorists may wonder – in the current climate – if it wasn’t the NSA instead.”

The Washington Post was bought by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for $250 million in August.

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