Chinese Cyber-Attack Said to Be Part of Vast Espionage CampaignThe cyber-attack that prompted Google to threaten to remove its service in China was part of a concerted espionage campaign against American financial, corporate, defense and research institutions, the Washington Post reports. At least 34 companies, including Yahoo, Symantec and Dow Chemical, were hit, along with human rights groups and Washington-based think tanks that work on human rights issues in China.
Google said the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in the United States, Europe and China were compromised, igniting the search giant's threat to shutter services in China.
The attacks, presumed to be carried out by hackers working for the Chinese government or military, showed a new level of sophistication and highlighted what the Obama administration has called an intensifying cyber-threat. The standoff between Google and China touches on some of the most contentious issues between the United States and China, and the attacks are quickly creating a diplomatic rift.
We have seen the US used cyber warfare in Iraq, and now we know China has cyber attack capability and has used it. At least 34 companies were hit, we don't know how many others were hit, because sometimes you don't find out for months that you were hit. Sometimes you may not find out you were hit. Google is attacked frequently by hackers, and the Chinese military got through to them. If a tech savvy company like Google that is frequently attacked, is on its toes, can get hit, is industry ready to spend the kind of dollars to protect themselves and the rest of us? Not really, the best among them are failing to protect themselves. Cyber warfare is not the same as 20-something hackers.
I suspect this could be like sending out a platoon on patrol. Go out there, engage the enemy, assess their strength, see where their defenses are, don't give away any of our secrets, see how they react so if we decide to attack later we will know what to expect. It's standard warfare.
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