Cyberattack

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A man spins a wheel during new year festivities to predict the winner of Hong Kong's chief executive election. The daily Sing Pao says its staff are being harassed because of its critical coverage. (AFP/Anthony Wallace)

Hong Kong daily Sing Pao says its journalists and website are under attack

New York, February 22, 2017–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Hong Kong authorities to investigate the harassment of journalists at the daily Sing Pao. Sing Pao Media Enterprises, which owns the paper, released a statement yesterday saying that staff have been followed and harassed, and that the newspaper’s computer system was attacked.

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Citizen Lab Senior Research Fellow Bill Marczak, pictured, told CPJ that the iOS vulnerability was 'mind-boggling.' (Geoffrey King)

Apple vulnerability is surprising, but journalists should stick with iPhones

A rare and serious vulnerability in Apple’s iOS operating system has been discovered by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which today published a report detailing its findings. It is the first known remote iOS vulnerability of its kind. Disturbingly, the company behind malware designed to exploit the security flaw may have also…

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Ecuadoran news websites face harassment

Ecuadoran news websites that published corruption allegations were the target of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on May 9, 2016, according to a joint letter Ecuadoran editors and press-freedom advocates sent to the Committee to Protect Journalists on May 13. In a DDoS attack, the attackers seek to overwhelm a website’s server with rapid,…

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News website Inkyfada hit with cyberattack after Panama Papers report

The independent Tunisian news website Inkyfada was hit with a cyberattack on April 4, 2016, hours after publishing a Panama Papers report that mentioned Tunisian politician Mohsen Marzouk, according to statements published by Inkyfada on its Facebook page. During the attack Inkyfada’s website was hacked and its content manipulated, with hackers attempting to publish names…

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China’s overseas critics under pressure from smear campaigns, cyber attacks

“I think my actions … have harmed the national interest. What I have done was very wrong. I seriously and earnestly accept to learn a lesson and plead guilty,” said Chinese journalist Gao Yu during a televised confession on the state-run channel CCTV in May 2014.

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The rubble of a school bombed by the Sudanese government in 2012. To set up a news agency to cover the conflict, humanitarian worker Ryan Boyette used crowdfunding. (AP/Ryan Boyette)

Journalists overcome obstacles through crowdfunding and determination

During South Africa’s Boer War, at the turn of the 20th century, a determined news organization relocated reporters, copy editors, and printing presses to the front line to ensure accurate reporting. In the Warsaw Ghetto, during World War II, a literal underground press, established to counter Nazi propaganda, required the nightly movement of cumbersome printing…

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A picture taken on April 9, 2015, shows a note on the window of a newsroom at French television network TV5Monde headquarters in Paris, after TV5Monde was hacked by individuals claiming to belong to the Islamic State group. (AFP/Thomas Samson)

Cyberattacks rattle French, Belgian media outlets

The headquarters of Le Soir in the center of Brussels, two blocks away from the Parliament, look serene in the spring sunshine. No sign of violence scars the glass and stone facade. But the leading Belgian francophone daily, the flagship of the Rossel media group, has suffered a concussion. On Sunday a wave of hacking…

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French-language global TV network TV5Monde hacked

New York, April 9, 2015–The French-language global TV network TV5Monde was disrupted for three hours on Wednesday night by hackers claiming to belong to the militant group Islamic State, according to news reports. The hackers seized control of 11 channels as well as the network’s website and social media accounts, the reports said. TV5Monde restored…

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Student leaders speak to the press at a pro-democracy protest outside the central government offices in Hong Kong on Thursday. (AFP/Alex Ogle)

Hong Kong’s media battlefield

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests are among the best covered in history. The city is saturated with print, broadcast, and social media, traveling across some of the best networks on earth. Its citizens are among the most connected in the world. And for all the media’s flaws, consumers expect them to deliver.

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Simple steps to protect journalists and sources from eavesdroppers

Journalists are among those most likely to face technical attempts at attack and interception. Reporting is based on discussions with sources who may want to remain out of the limelight, and news sites attract extensive readership, making them a desirable target for potential attackers. But there are simple steps to protect against the most common…

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