Reporters operating in Taiwan were among a number of journalists and rights activists whose e-mail accounts were compromised in what appears to have been a coordinated series of attacks uncovered this week.
The development comes on the heels of an announcement by Google that it was moving its Chinese-language search service out of China over censorship concerns.
The problems began last Thursday, when some journalists in Taiwan and China found they were unable to access their Yahoo e-mail accounts.
One Taiwan-based target of the apparent attack told the Taipei Times on Monday that his e-mail account had been “hacked” the previous Wednesday or Thursday, adding that his passwords were changed.
The Taipei Times has since learned that two of its former employees, who still work in the news industry, were among those targeted.
“When I first tried to log onto my account and was denied I got a message that said: ‘Important Message About Your Yahoo! Account. We have detected an issue with your account. To access your account, you must contact Yahoo! Customer Care,’” the journalist told the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity for fear of being the target of renewed attacks.
MISSPELLING
“They then misspelled the US as ‘Unites States,’ which concerned me because I know that Chinese hackers sometimes send fake messages like this and often misspell words,” he said.
“It was Yahoo that decided to shut down accounts that were being targeted. They [hackers] were poking around Yahoo looking at our account information. Someone in Yahoo raised the red flag and they locked the accounts down,” the reporter said.
“Despite the fact that Yahoo is getting some criticism for not being secure enough ... I think it’s fair to say they were wise enough to protect their customers from an attack. But they should explain it further. There were too many of us who were hit to write it off as a coincidence,” he said.
“It is evident that whomever was behind the attacks, whether government or individuals, it originated most likely in China,” he said.
A current employee at the Taipei Times received a similar warning last Friday, informing her that there were signs of “unauthorized access” in her account, which could only be reactivated on Tuesday after a verification telephone call and change of passwords. Yahoo apologized to the user for the delay, saying it had received “unusually high volumes” of alerts.
Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times in Beijing said his Yahoo Plus account had been set without his knowledge to forward to another, unknown, account.
The compromised accounts include those of the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group that Beijing accuses of inciting “separatism” by Uighurs in Xinjiang.
INFO DOWNLOAD
“I suspect a lot of information in my Yahoo account was downloaded,” the group’s spokesman, Dilxat Raxit, told reporters yesterday. He said the e-mail account, which was set up in Sweden, has been inaccessible for a month.
In late 2009 and early this year, several human rights activists and journalists whose work related to China also discovered their Gmail accounts had been set to forward to unfamiliar addresses, without their knowledge.
Google cited the Gmail attacks in January, when it announced a hacking attack on it and more than 20 other firms. Google cited those attacks and censorship concerns in its decision to move its Chinese-language search services last week to Hong Kong.
Yahoo did not comment on the nature of the attacks, or whether they were coordinated or isolated incidents.
Also See: Vietnam cyber-attacks linked to mining
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a