Google Hacked by Asian Hackers?
February 22nd, 2010
Google attack by Asian hackers? The Wall Street Journal reports that Google could have been attacked along with 33 other US companies by an Asian hacking group.
Where is the group from in Asia? Investigators and sources claim that they could be from China.
Google and China’s difficulties have been well reported on in the past. Censorship in the communist country lead to a lot of demands on Google, and there were rumors that Google was going to pull out of China. So far, that hasn’t happened.
Google claims to have been attacked in January, and such attacks lead to the loss of intellectual property. Somehow the company traced the attacks to China, and linked the attacks to Chinese human rights individuals’ gmail accounts.
Such attacks are said to target companies, and not military or governmental groups. The hackers use sophisticated software that they likely wrote themselves, and appear comfortable delivering synchronized attacks.
The group also masks stolen data traffic to appear like normal network traffic, but such methods used during cyber attacks have been used in the past.
What do these attacks mean? For one, it means that companies should realize that they are vulnerable to cyber attacks. In addition, the situation should be monitored. Although the groups aren’t targeting military or government organization, who’s to say that such attacks won’t percolate in the future?
Google hasn’t commented publicly about the attacks, and the Chinese government denies any role in such attacks.
Source:
