Fast Company isn’t the only news outlet to suffer a recent, high-profile security breach. As CNBCreports, The New York Post has confirmed it was the victim of a hack. The perpetrators briefly defaced both the newspaper’s website and Twitter account with racist and sexist headlines, including ones targeting New York City Mayor Eric Adams and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In a statement, the The Post said only that it was “investigating the cause.” No one has taken credit for the hack as of this writing, and it’s not clear if the intruders took any sensitive data.
This isn’t the first breach targeting The Post this year. In February, News Corp revealed that hackers compromised email accounts and documents for The Post and Wall Street Journal employees, including some journalists. Mandiant, a security firm working for the media giant, believed China was conducting an intelligence gathering operation. It’s not certain if there’s any relation between the cyberattacks.
The New York Post has been hacked. We are currently investigating the cause.
— New York Post (@nypost) October 27, 2022
The attack comes just weeks after Fast Company fell victim to hacks that let the culprit send racist notifications to Apple News users. The publication went so far as to shut down its entire website while it addressed the incident. The hacker claimed to have exploited weak password security in WordPress that let them steal employee login info, password hashes and draft articles.
There’s no known link between the hacks at present. However, they illustrate the potential dangers of site violations like this. On top of the risks to data, they provide easy ways for hackers to spread toxic and partisan messages. It won’t be surprising if there are similar campaigns in the near future, especially with the US midterm elections just weeks away.