Hacker warning for Myanmar press

Hacker warning for Myanmar press

Google has warned Myanmar-based journalists that their email accounts might have been hacked by "state sponsored" attackers.

The warnings have been issued to employees of Myanmar news organisation Eleven Media; Bertil Lintner, a Thailand-based author and expert on Myanmar’s ethnic groups; and a Myanmese correspondent for The Associated Press.

“I can certainly confirm that we send these types of notices to accounts that we suspect are the targets of state-sponsored attacks,” Google spokesman Taj Meadows told the New York Times.

Mr Meadows said that he could not provide specific details about the warnings, but confirmed Google had begun issuing them in June 2012.

Eleven Media reported on Saturday that the editor of Myanmar newspaper, The Voice Weekly, and the Myanmar correspondent for Japanese news agency Kyodo had also received warnings from Google.

Than Htut Aung of Eleven Media told the New York Times that he had heard reports from his staff that members of the Myanmar military were “very angry” with their reporting on the Kachin conflict in northern Myanmar, where in recent weeks ethnic Kachin rebels have engaged in fighting with the government for control over territory near the Chinese border.

Eleven Media was among the first news organisations to report that the Myanmar military was using aircraft to attack the rebels – a policy that the government denied until reports and photographs appeared in Eleven Media.

Mr Than added that it was too early to say whether the military had a role in the cyber attacks.

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