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Russian hackers suspected in hack of New York Times, others

Newspaper says its Moscow bureau was the target of a cybersecurity breach but that there's no evidence hackers were successful.

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Steven Musil
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Russian hackers are suspected of being behind a cyberattack on The New York Times and other media outlets.

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The FBI suspects cybersecurity breaches targeting reporters at The New York Times and other news agencies were carried out by hackers working for Russian intelligence, CNN reported Monday.

"Investigators so far believe that Russian intelligence is likely behind the attacks and that Russian hackers are targeting news organizations as part of a broader series of hacks that also have focused on Democratic Party organizations, the officials said," according to CNN.

In a follow-up report, The New York Times reported late Monday that its Moscow bureau was the target of an attempted cyberattack earlier this month. The Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment but said in its report that there was no evidence hackers succeeded in penetrating the newspaper's cyberdefenses.

"We are constantly monitoring our systems with the latest available intelligence and tools," Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times, said in the report. "We have seen no evidence that any of our internal systems, including our systems in the Moscow bureau, have been breached or compromised."

Neither the FBI nor the Russian embassy immediately responded to a request for comment.

News of the hack attempt comes amid allegations that hackers working for the Russian government broke into the Democratic National Committee's computer network, gaining access to emails and chat transcripts, as well as opposition research on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

US-based news agencies have become popular targets for hack attempts in recent years. In 2013, The Washington Post reported that its servers had been breached for the second time in three years, giving hackers access to employee usernames and passwords.