CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson spoke at length for the first time Monday night about past recurring intrusions into her computer, telling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly of weird occurrences during which her computers would randomly turn on in the middle of the night.
"I was sleeping, so they would come on in the middle of the night, sometimes one right after the other," Attkisson told O'Reilly Monday night. "By the time last fall came around, they would sometimes both be starting up kind of a cacophony of computer music at night in the middle of the night."
CBS confirmed last Friday that a breach of Attkisson's computers had occurred on "multiple occasions" late last year — a period during which she was covering stories related to the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi and the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.
"While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data," CBS spokesperson Sonya McNair said in a statement.
"This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion."
Attkisson said she has a pretty good idea of who was responsible for the intrusion, but she would not name a specific entity on Monday. She did say, however, that it was "big," and far more important in scope than ordinary phishing or malware.
"This is not as ordinary as ... my old boyfriend trying to look through my files," she said.
The Justice Department told Business Insider that it never tried to obtain any information from Attkisson or any of her media devices.
“To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never ‘compromised’ Ms. At[t]kisson’s computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use," a Justice Department spokesman said.
Here's the clip of Attkisson's appearance on Fox News:
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