A number of Yahoo e-mail accounts belonging to journalists and human rights activists in China and Taiwan were reportedly “compromised” during an attack that took place earlier this week.
According to Reuters, the compromised accounts included those of the World Uyghur Congress, an exiled group accused group accused by Beijing of encouraging separatist activities by ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang.
“I suspect a lot of information in my Yahoo account was downloaded,” the group’s spokesman, Dilxat Raxit, told Reuters. “A lot of people I used to contact in Lanzhou, Xi’an and elsewhere have not been reachable by phone for the past few weeks.”
In addition, Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times (who is currently in Beijing) confirmed that his Yahoo Plus account had been set to forward mail to yet another enigmatic address.
It should be noted that Chinese hackers have executed similar attacks against Google by clandestinely forwarding incoming Gmail messages sent to various activists and journalists.
Unsurprisingly, the latest Chinese cyber offensive has been roundly condemned by a Yahoo spokesperson, who reiterated the company’s “committment” to protecting user security and privacy.
