Chinese hackers suspected in attack on The Post’s computers

By Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima, WashPost, Friday, February 1, 8:25 PM

A sophisticated cyberattack targeted The Washington Post in an operation that resembled intrusions against other major American news organizations and that company officials suspect was the work of Chinese hackers, people familiar with the incident said.

Post company officials confirmed the broad outlines of the infiltration, which was discovered in 2011 and first reported by an independent cybersecurity blog on Friday. But they did not elaborate on the circumstances, the duration of the intrusion or its apparent origin.

“Like other companies in the news recently, we face cybersecurity threats,” Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti said. “In this case, we worked with [security company] Mandiant to detect, investigate, and remediate the situation promptly at the end of 2011. We have a number of security measures in place to guard against cyberattacks on an ongoing basis.”

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported this week on major hacking campaigns they said likely originated in China.

(More here.)