(Bloomberg) — One of Australia’s largest Chinese-language media platforms came under cyber attack early in the hours of June 4, potentially putting users’ information at risk, The Australian newspaper reported Wednesday.
On Saturday morning, users of the news organization Media Today received authentication texts to their mobile phones after more than 20 million attempts were made to reset user passwords, the paper reported, citing a statement from the company. It was expected that 110,000 users would receive the verification codes, it said.
The company said the cyber attack took place between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. on June 4, according to The Australian.
“The attack originated from IP addresses in the US, Canada and Hong Kong and was executed against the platform’s registration system, attempting to use SMS verification codes to obtain user passwords and steal their accounts,” the firm was reported as saying.
Media Today claims to have more than 2000,000 daily users in Australia, through its website and its application Australia Today. It said that no users’ personal information was leaked as a result of the attack, which had been reported to the police, The Australian reported.
June 4 is a significant date for the Chinese diaspora, marking the anniversary of the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing and other cities across China by the country’s military. Commemorations of the June 4 killings are heavily censored in China, including on state-run media and social media applications.
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