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Once the attackers control one computer on a network, they branch out from there, probing other computers on the same network and raiding e-mail accounts to get more ammunition for social engineering attacks. "They're basically tricking users into exploiting themselves," Villeneuve says, adding that perimeter defenses are useless if attackers can trick humans into handing over information or infecting themselves.
However, since many hacking groups operate using these tactics, Villeneuve says it can be devilishly hard to trace attacks back to their source. "We often don't know [the exact details of attackers'] relationship with the Chinese government," he says. Still, Villeneuve believes that the Chinese government would certainly stand to benefit from the activity.
Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge, agrees that "the sort of tricks" used against the Tibetan movement likely provide clues to the recent attacks against Google and other companies.
Shortly after Google made its announcement, Adobe posted an announcement of a "computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies." Adobe says it learned of the attack on January 2 but did not confirm that this attack was the same as the one that struck Google.
Google plans to negotiate with the Chinese government over the next few weeks to see if it is possible to run a standard version of its search engine in China. "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Drummond wrote.
No other major U.S. search engine has so far said it would change its operations in China. A Yahoo spokesperson said in a statement, "We stand aligned with Google that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose." But the search engine was silent on the question of whether it would make any changes to its own policies. A Microsoft statement read, "We have no indication that any of our mail properties have been compromised."
The company blames China, but none of the evidence is definitive—which is the nature of such attacks.
Secrets are flying online, both state and personal, and Internet companies are still looking for ways to make money on applications—or with users' private data.
Attackers made sophisticated use of social media sites to steal Indian government data.
They say in business all is fair. We have seen predatory marketing practices all over the world by most major companies.
It is a global economy today. Every country has their own problems and deal with it in their own unique way.
I remember when Indira Gandhi kicked out IBM and Coca Cola out of India because they were not ready to have an equal partnership. Much has changed in India today. All will be forgotten in time.
We spend too much time whining.Lets spend our time innovating and getting better at what we do.
Lets do what Americans do well, stay on the cutting edge of technology.There is a price involved in overseas business.
This is not about business, or pride, or prejudice.
It is about freedom, that most precious treasury, that people take for granted when they had it all their lives. People who live, or have lived, under a dictatorship, who have known the fear of being arrested or punished for thinking differently and daring to say so, know that freedom could never be compromised. Google should not compromise. There is nothing more important than freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and both go together.
Lets see.... The Chinese government runs unarmed students over with tanks, and then lines up the organizers and shoots them in a stadium.
Oh, but now they sent information stealing emails to Google! How could this happen!
All these US companies have deluded themselves. They have no representation, they are at the whim of this whack-job communist government.
Fools rush in.....
Re: You are all Kidding right?
I wish it could happen but this is the perfect scenario for the US to take action in order to overthrow the wicked communists. Back in the Tianamen days China had not entered into the global free enterprise market and its people did not depend on jobs that export products. Today the vast majority are dependent on these jobs to survive. Imagine what would happen if all these jobs were to suddenly vanish when the West no longer deal with China. This would create so much unrest that it would bring down the Chinese government.
We have seen a glimpse of it a year or two back when the unemployment situation was highest in China. Sure we would suffer some too, but the Chinese government would be the biggest loser. And it would have been the most important investment the country could make so far. Get rid of this last evil bastion on earth!
here's a review of the Chinese Internet situation.. 3 of 4 most popular worldwide websites - Twitter, youtube, facebook have been already blocked, and Google be the next?
http://umi.beok.net/porcelain/?p=167
Besides passively trying to stop hacks I suggest corporations implement reverse attacks on any hacker. By using dummy databases and files either destroy any computer system hacking your infrastructure or send out viral code that infiltrates the infected machines launching the attack to trace the remote controllers.
In this case I suspect Google has conclusively evidence of Chinese government involvement and will now negotiate with them on their terms or publicly disclose their evidence.
I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Our corporate entities have been sacrificing their values for a long time in the hopes that China opens up more to the world. However, at some point in time companies have to decide whether or not their values and ideals can come in line with their actions - and work to reconcile these differences. I think what happened at Google China is a combination of a business threat (ie sophisticated hackers, probably government sanctioned) and a gap between their corporate values/ideals and their actions.
Guest (Uber1)
Google is a drama queen crying on Obama's shoulder. Just quit China. America is still represented by Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc.
It was cheaper to get China to become more Capatilistic than to go to war with them. Nixon's ping pong match started all this. Alas - the Chinese Government (and their Military) want all those Western Secrets, but now they're too entrenched in making a buck to really back out of the game now.
As for the espionage activities - stealing things that China has no intention of Marketing abroad is what needs to be focused on. Eventually they may get enough stuff to kick out the foreigners, but at some time they will have to come back to the table and play some more. Let's face it - the Chinese People LIKE making a decent living, and that's the chink in the armor Nixon wanted to exploit. Eventually the old leadership will die off and be replaced by more open leadership. It may take four or five more generations, but it will happen. Our U.S. leadership is too naive to think it's already happened and they keep letting more and more businesses go to China.
As for the Chinese Military - they scare me. Who knows what they have stolen and are leveraging against the western allies - not just the US, but all of us.
It will be interesting when one day the US says "We need some tanks to fight a war...oh wait...you make our tanks.....worse yet...we're at war with you!"
I've been reading many praises of Google in the press. I feel this is very misplaced. Google is putting this out there as a last attempt to realign the risk/return of their Chinese investment. Their hope, of course, is to produce a reasonable return on their investment. They've been failing thus far. The claims of censorship are true but Baidu.com has the same censorship. The facts are Google has willingly censored their own search at the request of the Chinese. Additionally, they've had a purposeful hand in aiding the Chinese government in locating, arresting, and prosecuting Chinese rights activists. Because they commit these acts in China, US law has no jurisdiction. This law ought to be changed much as we now have laws against sex tours to poor developing nations.
Make no mistake, Google is no rights supporter. They ought to be tarred and feathered for their greedy and disgusting acts against humanity.
You may not be old enough to remember public speeches by Chinese officials vowing to overthrow the US government. When they realized they could not beat us militarily they switched to saying they would destroy us from within. Today they appear to be pursuing both tracks as they continue to pour large amounts of resources into their military while they exploit every economic option. I fear the godless.
I'm not defending China at all. They can't nor should be defended. But China is China while Google gets a pass for threatening (and its only a threat) to do what they should have done years ago. Google doesn't deserve cover as you and many others provide.
How does the author knows that the first two commenters are "Whites"? Are you not also steriotyping?
considering the antifreeze in cough medicine, lead paint in toys, melannin in infant formula no wonder there is distrust. So, whoses greedy????
To make a product, cough medicine, that killed hundreds of kids in Central America.... says it all. Untrustful.
I have only seen two mentions of the Chinese search engine, Baidu. You can look at this as a marketplace battle between two giants. Baidu has the, unbeatable, home advantage.
I talk with my girl friend in China everyday and when I go there I use yahoo with no problems, but I don't search porn sites. I can even get Fox news in China. I don't support what there government does, but I think we could use some internet filtering here.
Giggle cant do anything, they are driven by greed and will suck up to the Chinese Government, turn activists in and anything they are required to do.
All they can do is whine like a 2 year old baby everytime.
China just spanks the big baby and the baby shuts up till the next time.
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gabrielg01
450 Comments
Re: comment harmonized
comment was 'harmonized'
Reply
doanwon
76 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
Not nationalist China but communist and totalitarian China--evil, sly, shifty. 'Nuf said.
Reply
jmarden
2 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
"...evil, sly, shifty."
Age old stereotypes from racist whites against Asians/Chinese.
No wonder the Chinese government is xenophobic.
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stephenvaile
2 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
This xenophobic Native American (Pikanii Blackfoot Indian) knows first hand that there is nothing benevolent about the Communist Chinese Leadership. The quicker the elitist liberal snobs of the planet wake up to this fact, the quicker the regular citizens of mainland China will have freedom and the rest of the world will be able to do business with honest, reliable,and honorable people.
Reply
doanwon
76 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
Thank you stephenvaile for seeing that the description was directed at the communist leadership. How else would anyone have described the actions perpetrated by the communists against its own people and against foreign enterprises? You have to call an ace for what it is. Maybe some liberals will describe the egregious offenses as "honest, reliable,and honorable".
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jmarden
2 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
You could have used better and more precise description rather than racist-sounding gibes. All this hostile language is just a manifestation of inner prejudice.
Yeah, call an ace for what it is. Don't hide behind accusations of espionage, xenophobia etc...
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nouveauphoto
2 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
NO Joke, Pull OUT and restart our own country / Heart again. China has turned our Greed against ourselves and has shown what we should have learned over Two Hundred Years ago! Are we fated to repeat mistakes again and again, until we get it wrong... AGAIN?
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skingw
31 Comments
Yes! Pull out GM First
Please pull out GM first! Call your senators, write to Whitehouse, get the trade union, whatsoever!
I am in beijing, and hate GM for no reason but my wife likes it for no reason. And we are fighting a major family decision as we are buying the first family car ever with savings of two years. I prefer a Nissan crossover.
Back to google, my wife never uses it, and she only uses baidu to search for pirated Korean TV dramas, which I hate so much. I am using them about half half. The major problem would be my Gmail account.
So sorry for google. But its way of handling this issue like a real "maverick" means no Chinese government, communist or not, would accept this.
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shomas
245 Comments
Re: Yes! Pull out GM First
Your neighbor may not like you but that does not justify him stealing your TV. Disliking a product or service does not justify theft of actual or intellectual property.
Businesses that consider pulling out of a rouge state such as china do so to protect their investments.
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Guest (Uber1)
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
But then again, neocons are paranoid of China and communism.
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doanwon
76 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
There is no paranoia about China and communism. There is however understanding of first hand experience from people like myself and stevenvaile, who have seen what it's like to live under communism and their blatant disrespect for human rights. Don't let the twisted liberals mess you up.
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gstide
3 Comments
Re: Everybody should pull out of xenophobic China.
"no paranoia ..."? this is funny.
if you really want to know what's going on in China, you need to be there. western press won't tell you the truth.
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