Russian Hackers Fancy Bear Targeted Hundreds of Journalists

Four past and present Daily Beast reporters are among the at least 200 journalists who have been targeted since 2014 by the Russian hacking unit known as Fancy Bear, which infamously stole Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, the Associated Press reports. Using data provided by cybersecurity firm SecureWorks, AP found hacking attempts on independent Russian journalists, Ukrainian reporters covering the Russia-backed war in the country, as well as 50 New York Times journalists. Other targets include former Daily Beast national-security writer Josh Rogin; investigative reporter Adrian Chen, who was one of the first Western journalists to really pay attention to Russia’s troll farms; Daily Beast contributor James Kirchick; former Daily Beast foreign editor Michael Weiss; and intelligence-community reporter Shane Harris while he wrote for The Daily Beast, the AP said. The fact that Russian hackers target journalists is not news in and of itself—but the AP report highlights the industrial scale at which these hackers operate. And those 200 or so journalists are only the ones that the AP could identify.