Google upset about the hacking of Gmail accounts in China

Jun 3
08:23

2011

Karan  G Gupta

Karan G Gupta

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@font-face { }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }.MsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; } Google says that Gmail accounts of hundreds of people including US officials, journalists and Chinese activists were hacked from Jinan, central China

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News has just come out that the people who tried to steal login details of Google email accounts of numerous account holders, some senior U.S. officials, Chinese activists and journalists which had been hacked some time back might be a work of some Chinese hackers [Source – Reuters]. It is said by Google that the suspects appear to be from Jinan, from the capital of China’s eastern Shandong. Jinan is a place where People's Liberation Army has six technical bureaus and a technical college, which was investigated by U.S. last year in regards to a previous attack on Google.


The recent computer based invasions of multinational companies have brought up a major problem about Internet security that needs to be resolved. Google detected the hackers and distorted their stealing process Google said on its official blog. Google had earlier disclosed about the previous cyber attacks on its systems by hackers in China and this recent event could worsen the things between Google and Beijing. Google partly withdrew its services from China after last year’s conflict between Google and Chinese government over censorship and serious hacking episode. Google did not say that the Chinese government backed the attacks.

 

The cyber attacks taking place from China has become quite common recently, said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer at telecommunications company BT. "It's not just the Chinese government. It's independent actors within China who are working with the tacit approval of the government," he said. The United States of America has warned that if a cyber attack presumably if it’s demolishing enough, then the real world military will come into action and retaliate, although experts say it is difficult to trace origin precisely. Lockheed Martin Corp says it had suffered “a significant and tenacious attack”. The point is cyber attacks are becoming very frequent and now big giants are being targeted where as in the earlier it used to happen just for personal reasons but now targets like Google and Lockheed Martin Corp make us assume that the motives are something different and huge. Cyber crimes are quite similar to regular crimes just the procedures of doing them is different, its like you can steal a top-secret file without having the need to walk into the office.


Google said on its official blog that the hackers, who appeared to originate from Jinan, China, recently tried to crack and monitor email accounts by stealing passwords. BEIJING: China said that it was "unacceptable" for Google to accuse it of having played a role in a cyber infiltration campaign targeting Gmail accounts of senior US officials, Chinese activists and journalists. "To put all of the blame on China is unacceptable," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.  This issue needs to get sorted out peacefully and as soon as possible because it has already started to catch fire.  A US government spokesman said it was looking into the incident, but declined further comment. “Google recently uncovered a project to collect user passwords through the means of phishing,” Google said on its official blog. The company's shares were down  by 0.7 percent closing at $525.60.