Environmental Groups Investigating ExxonMobil Hit By Hacking/Phishing Attacks; SDNY On Case
Three years ago, several environmental groups noticed that they had been receiving suspicious emails with fake Google News articles and other links related to their climate-change campaign against Exxon Mobil. The emails came from accounts that impersonated their own colleagues and lawyers. Those phishing emails have now led to a federal criminal investigation into a sprawling hacking-for-hire operation that for years has targeted the email accounts of government officials, journalists, banks, environmental activists and other individuals, according to people briefed on the inquiry.
As part of the investigation, federal prosecutors in Manhattan conducted interviews earlier this year with environmental groups that received the emails, including the Rockefeller Family Fund, some of the people familiar with the inquiry said. Prosecutors are investigating the hackers behind the operation and who hired them, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss an ongoing investigation. Exxon Mobil has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
EDIT
Citizen Lab’s report said a large group of targets in the hacking campaign were American nonprofit groups that had been battling publicly with Exxon Mobil for years over whether the oil company engaged in an effort to mislead the public about climate science, which the company has denied. The targeted organizations included the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Climate Investigations Center and Greenpeace. The report could not say with certainty whether the hackers had successfully broken into their networks.
Some of the phishing emails were tailored to the organizations’ work on Exxon and climate change, the report said. For instance, multiple emails invited recipients to click on links to fake Google News articles about Exxon, and many of the messages were sent from email accounts impersonating people involved in the advocacy campaign against Exxon, including lawyers.
EDIT
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/nyregion/exxon-mobil-hackers-greenpeace.html
