Foreign journalists in Beijing hit by e-mail hackers

NEW YORK: The Google e-mail accounts of at least two foreign correspondents in Beijing have been hacked, a journalists' advocacy group in China said today.

The two journalists apparently discovered that their accounts had been hacked after Google announced last week that hackers had attempted sophisticated attacks on its security infrastructure, The New York Times reported.

The hackers changed settings so that all Gmail messages would be forwarded to unfamiliar addresses. One of the two journalists is a television reporter in the Beijing bureau of The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, the journalists' advocacy group, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, has cautioned its members about the reported hacking incidents.

"We remind all members that journalists in China have been particular targets of hacker attacks in the last two years," said in its announcement of the recent attacks on the Gmail accounts.

Google also said that two Gmail accounts had been compromised and, separately, that dozens of people pressing for human rights in China had had their e-mail accounts hacked, the report said.

In retaliation, Google had said it would talk to the Chinese government about ceasing the practice of self- censorship of its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, and that the search company could close down or curtail its operations in China.