China: Email Virus Targets Foreign Media

On Monday, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China posted a warning on its website. It says emails containing viruses are being sent to foreign reporters’ news assistants.

The emails purport to be from a “Pam Bourdon,” who claims to the economic editor of whatever media is being targeted. “Pam” asks the email recipient to help her line up interviews, and points them to an attached list of people. This email attachment, according to Reuters, contains malicious software.

The emails do not show the common signs of a spam, like poor English. They even poke fun at Beijing’s bad traffic. The recipient at Reuters knew the email was fake because there was no economic editor named Pam Bourdon at the agency.

It is not known where the emails are coming from, or whether the Chinese regime is involved.

What is clear, though, is that most of the mail recipients are Chinese news assistants. Reuters reports that their names usually don’t appear on news reports, and are hired through an agency that reports to China’s Foreign Ministry.

The fake emails also target rights groups, and appear to be linked to the upcoming October 1st anniversary of communist rule. Nicholas Bequelin of Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch told Reuters that: “There is definitely a pattern of virus attacks in the run-up to important dates on the Chinese political calendar.

(NTDTV)