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After revealing that it had been the victim of a data breach that had affected a limited number of employees, News Corp has now said that the threat actors have had access to company networks for two years.
News Corp made the announcement in a letter sent to affected employees, though the company has not revealed how many employees were affected.
“Based on the investigation, News Corp understands that, between February 2020 and January 2022, an unauthorised party gained access to certain business documents and emails from a limited number of its personnel’s accounts in the affected system, some of which contained personal information,” the letter — which was sent to at least one Massachusetts resident, according to that state’s data breach register — said, according to Bleeping Computer.
“Our investigation indicates that this activity does not appear to be focused on exploiting personal information. We are not aware of reports of identity theft or fraud in connection with this issue.”
However, the letter does go on to say that some personal data was breached.
“The affected personal information may have included one or more of the following: your name, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s licence number, passport number, financial account information, medical information, and health insurance information.
“Not all of this information was impacted for each affected individual,” it said.
News Corp also seems confident that the threat actors no longer have access to the company’s networks.
When News Corp first reported that hack earlier this month, it reported that Chinese, state-affiliated hackers were behind the incident. Mandiant, who was hired to investigate the breach, said that the hackers had “a China nexus, and we believe they are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests”, according to David Wong, vice-president of consulting at Mandiant.
The breach was discovered in late January and affected emails and documents of a small number of employees, including journalists.
News Corp company executives told their employees at the time: “We believe the activity affected a limited number of business email accounts and documents from News Corp headquarters, News Technology Services, Dow Jones, News UK, and New York Post.”
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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