Chinese hacking of US media becoming a “widespread phenomenon”

Computer systems operated by The Wall Street Journal have been penetrated by Chinese hackers for the apparent purpose of monitoring the publication's coverage of China, the newspaper reported Thursday.

The acknowledgement came in a short article published less than 24 hours after The New York Times reported a similar breach. According to the earlier report, the NYT network had been rooted for four months by hackers who were intent on gathering intelligence about a series of stories related to the family of China’s prime minister. The report cited unnamed sources as saying Bloomberg News was also targeted by Chinese hackers after the news organization published an article in June about the wealth accumulated by relatives of Xi Jinping. Xi has since become China's general secretary of the Communist Party and is expected to become president in March.

The NYT went on to say that media outlets have been targeted since 2008, and today's WSJ article characterized the hacking campaign as extensive.

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