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News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets, said hackers have been infiltrating its networks for nearly two years, stealing private documents and emails.
News Corp first disclosed the breach in February 2022 in Securities and Exchange Commission filings and a Wall Street Journal article. The company said at the time that he discovered “sustained cyberattack activity” a month ago on a third-party cloud service the company used. Security firm Mandiant, which helped News Corp. investigate the intrusion, told the WSJ he believed the attack was carried out by a threat actor affiliated with the Chinese government.
Last week, News Corp. sent at least one affected employee a breach notice providing additional details.
“Based on our investigation, News Corp found that between February 2020 and January 2022, unauthorized persons accessed certain business documents from a limited number of employee accounts within the affected system. I understand that I have accessed the emails and emails and that they contained personal information,” the letter said. “Our research indicates that this activity does not appear to be focused on the misuse of personal information.”
The letter added that News Corp. was not aware of any identity theft or fraud related to the data breach. Investigators “believe this was an intelligence gathering,” a News Corp. representative said in an email. The email revealed whether the focus of the two-year intrusion was to obtain personal information about the company’s news gathering and press coverage, how many employees were affected, and whether investigators were still aware that the threat actor was involved. He did not answer a question about whether he believed he was affiliated with the United States. Chinese government.
Personal information captured by the attackers included employee names, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, financial account information, medical information, and health insurance information. Not all of this information affected each affected individual. News Corp. is offering the affected employee two years of identity theft protection and credit monitoring free of charge for her through Experian.
