News International staff accused of malware hacking

Police are being called in to investigate alleged malware attacks by News International staff or private investigators from as far back as 2005.

Booker nominee Belle de Jour has said that she was first sent malware by The Sunday Times in 2005. The blogger, former sex worker Dr Brooke Magnanti, claimed that she was the victim of multiple malware hacking attempts before 2006 from members of the press.

"I had Trojans in email from certain newspapers pre-2006, I wonder how many also had but didn't realise it," Magnanti tweeted.

The Belle de Jour blog was one of the most highly visible examples of popular blogging success. The book Belle De Jour: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl became a best-seller and inspired a popular TV series.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, told V3.co.uk that such attacks, while most likely crude, were certainly possible. Off-the-shelf malware kits were easily available at the time and most people had, and still have to an extent, a lax approach to security.

"If you're the kind of person who thinks it's OK to break into someone's voicemail then you're not going to have much trouble breaking into their email, particularly if you're a third-party operator working for pay," he said.

"I would not be at all surprised if this went on. The information you can get from computer hacking is so much more useful - with voicemail you only get one half of the conversation."

Magnanti also warned fellow blogger Zoe Margolis, who was outed by The Sunday Times as the author of the award-winning blog and book Girl with a one-track mind.

Margolis, an assistant director on the Harry Potter films, lost her job when she was outed and published bullying emails she had received from the paper.

"So, it looks like The Sunday Times possibly attempted to hack both my & @belledejour_uk's email via Trojans; am *definitely* contacting the Met," Margolis tweeted.