Google's China Affair
The wave of targeted attacks from China on Google, Adobe, and more than 20 other U.S. companies, which has led the search giant to consider closing its doors in China and no longer censor search results there, began with end users at the victim organizations getting duped by convincing spear-phishing messages with poisoned attachments.
Google and Adobe both have revealed that they were hit by these attacks, which appear to be aimed mainly at stealing intellectual property, including source code from the victim companies, security experts say.
So far, the other victim companies have yet to come forward and say who they are, but some could go public later this week.
Google first discovered in mid-December that it had been hit by a targeted attack out of China that resulted in the theft of some of its intellectual property. The attackers' primary goal was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, according to Google.
Table of Contents
Spear-Phishing Attacks Out Of China Targeted Source Code, Intellectual Property
Warning Signs Preceded Cyberattack
Flaws In The 'Aurora' Attacks
Is The U.S. Afraid To Admit That China Declared War On It?
China Defends Great Firewall
Google/China Reality Check Amid The Fog Of Cyberwar
New Details On Targeted Attacks On Google, Others Trickle Out
Direction Of Fallout?
China And Google: The Real Story?
Google Hack Code Released, Metasploit Exploit Now Available
Other Targets In Google Cyberattack Surface
Attackers Employed IE Zero-Day
More Victims Come Forward
About the Author
Kelly Jackson Higgins is senior editor of Dark Reading. She can be reached at higgins@darkreading.com.
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