Google China Attack-Chinese Govt Source of Google, Gmail Breach?

by Sudha Krishna | January 14, 2010 at 04:56 pm
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The recent attacks on Google in China have been traced back to agencies linked with the Chinese Government. The Guardian newspaper says a report for Verisign's iDenfense Labs says in internet addresses "

 "...of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof".

The attacks were not just on Google sites in China though about 20 other foreign organizations and companies were victims of cyber attacks. One the cyber attacks on the China based sites were detected a few days ago the official Google Blog had this to say:

... we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves. (source: google)

...we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

The Guardian quotes an unamed source from Google who mentioned that Sergey Brin ,a Russian refugee and Google co-founder, was particularly influential in taking a tougher stance against China.

"The notion that somebody would try to turn Google's tools into tools of political surveillance was something he found deeply offensive." When it became clear that the cyber attacks were about political surveillance, people at the very top of the company "decided they no longer wanted to participate in this kind of behaviour," 

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China defends web censorship after Google threat
Beijing (AFP) Jan 15, 2010 - China declared its Internet "open" Thursday but defended censorship that has prompted web giant Google to threaten to pull out of the country, adding a potential new irritant in China-US relations. But Google -- backed by the White House -- appeared to be winning the battle for hearts and minds, with Chinese online users flooding the web and visiting the company's Beijing offices to express ... more

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Google isnt the only company experiencing cyber attacks. Now come the lawfirms.

U.S. law firm that sued China reports cyber attack

Gipson Hoffman & Pancione, the Los Angeles law firm that recently filed a $2.2 billion copyright infringement suit against the People's Republic of China, said that it has become the target of cyber attacks originating in China.



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First Flagged at 7:58 PM, Jan 14, 2010 by snuffysmith
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