Monday, January 18, 2010

So, just how did Google get hacked?

Security expert Graham Cluley asks whether infected PDFs were to blame

UPDATE: The vector for the attack on Google has since been confirmed as Internet Explorer.

Earlier this week the internet was rocked by a blog post from Googlerevealing that it had been the victim of a targeted attack from Chinese hackers, and was planning to express its outrage by no longer censoring the Chinese version of its search engine.

Google said that it and at least 20 other large companies had been on the receiving end of the "highly sophisticated and targeted attack", which resulted in the theft of intellectual property and the attempted access of Gmail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists.

Although targeted attacks are nothing new, it is very unusual for a corporation to be so upfront about an attack, and to pinpoint the blame in a clear direction.

Google, however, must be feeling fairly confident about its facts to so clearly imply that the Chinese state may have been responsible for the hacking attempt.

But how did the hack happen, and how can other companies and individuals protect themselves from similar attacks in the future?

Read the full story

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