Hackers broke into Dow Jones & Co. systems and were able to access information on fewer than 3,500 of the company's current and former subscribers.
In a letter sent to customers, company CEO William Lewis, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, also owned by News Corp., said “It appears that the focus was to obtain contact information such as names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of current and former subscribers in order to send fraudulent solicitations.”
Lewis noted that to date an investigation has not found “ any direct evidence that information was stolen.”
Ken Westin, senior security analyst with Tripwire, wasn't surprised that hackers had attacked Dow Jones.
“All financial services businesses are hot targets for cyber-crime and fraud because their customers are more likely to be more wealthy, and therefore be more lucrative targets,” he said in a statement emailed to SCMagazine.com. “Our personal information is harvested by attackers from any business that collects and stores it. The initial breach is just the beginning of a long con which can play out over months or years with the goal of robbing individuals of large sums of money.”
Dow Jones's Lewis told customers that those affected by the breach would be receiving additional information on the support the company will be offering.