Hacking Attack on Journalist Who Reported Child Trafficking in China

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that the reporter from Caixin Century magazine who reported about the confiscation of over-quota children by family planning authorities has been the target of a hack attack:

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a hacking attack on a Chinese journalist's e-mail account reported by her employer on Saturday. The attack originated from a region of China where the journalist was investigating child trafficking.

The Beijing-based Caixin Media group said in a statement posted to its website on Saturday that its Caixin magazine reporter Zhao Hejuan's Gmail account had been hijacked by an unknown person or group. A Gmail security alert notified Zhao on July 21 that someone had been accessing the personal account she used for work purposes, according to the statement. Caixin said the unauthorized access had begun on July 19 and was traced through the IP address to the county of Longhui in Hunan province. Zhao had been in Longhui investigating the alleged abduction of children born outside family-planning restrictions for adoption overseas, which Caixin said in May was a for-profit scheme run by local government officials.