More details have emerged on the Google hack which has prompted the firm to
threaten to pull out of China, including evidence linking the attack to a
similar hack on 100 Silicon Valley firms last year, and the possibility that
Adobe's corporate network has also been hacked by China.
Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, explained in a blog posting
yesterday that the firm and at least 20 other companies had been the subject of
a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack".
The ultimate goal of the attack on Google's systems, according to Drummond,
was to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
Although the blog posting falls short of accusing the Chinese government
outright, VeriSign's iDefense managed security services arm has confirmed that
state-sponsored parties were to blame.
