CPJ condemns cyberattack on News Corp media publications
Washington, D.C., February 7, 2022—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday expressed grave concern about the cyberattack on News Corp that gave hackers access to journalists’ emails and other documents, and urged Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into who was behind the attack. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the attack…
Three Philippine media outlets face latest in a string of cyberattacks
Three Philippine news websites, ABS-CBN News, Rappler, and Vera Files, publicized separate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks between December 11 and 23, 2021. The attacks flood websites with requests to prevent them from functioning, and the sites were periodically forced offline by huge spikes in traffic coinciding with political news coverage. All three sites have been…
Brazilian media outlet that covers women’s rights targeted with DDoS attack
Between March 26 and April 2, 2021, unidentified internet users orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Portal Catarinas, an online media outlet specializing in gender, feminism, and human rights, according to Paula Guimarães, the portal’s executive director and a report by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI). The attacks flooded the site with traffic…
New York Times journalist Nicole Perlroth on the secret trade in tools used to hack the press
The last time New York Times cybersecurity journalist Nicole Perlroth spoke with Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor in 2016, his passport had been taken and he had recently been beaten almost to the point of death. “We learned later on that our phone conversation had been tapped, that someone was in his baby monitor, that his…
Investigative outlet Repórter Brasil targeted with cyberattacks, threats, attempted break-in
Rio de Janeiro, January 13, 2021 — Brazilian authorities must swiftly and thoroughly investigate threats to Repórter Brasil, and hold the perpetrators to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. From January 6 to 12, unidentified internet users orchestrated a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the website of Repórter Brasil, an investigative reporting and…
Nigeria’s Premium Times faces cyberattacks, intimidation of journalists after publishing leaked documents
New York, March 6, 2020 — Nigerian authorities should ensure that Premium Times employees are able to work in safety and without interference or intimidation, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
US-Nigerian Sahara Reporters website reports assets frozen amid surveillance, censorship
New York, December 10, 2019—Nigerian authorities should halt all efforts to intimidate journalists working with the U.S.-headquartered, Nigeria-focused Sahara Reporters news website and ensure they are permitted to continue working to report the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Mexican anti-corruption news website MCCI hit with cyberattack
New York, May 10, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned a cyberattack on Mexicanos Contra La Corrupción y Impunidad (MCCI), a Mexican nonprofit news outlet that publishes in-depth investigations into corruption in Mexico and Latin America.
How the Saudis may have spied on Jamal Khashoggi
Omar Abdulaziz, a 27-year-old Saudi Arabian dissident, can still remember the time Jamal Khashoggi, the storied Saudi journalist, unfollowed him on Twitter. It was in 2015, and Khashoggi had been tapped to head a new TV network called Al-Arab, a partnership between a member of the royal family and Bloomberg. Abdulaziz started haranguing Khashoggi online,…