The hackers who infiltrated the computer systems of Google earlier this month
first carried out sophisticated reconnaisance and may even have posed as friends
of Google employees, according to McAfee chief technology officer George Kurtz.
In a project dubbed Operation Aurora by the security giant, hackers are
likely to have used sophisticated social engineering techniques and advanced
reconnaissance work to target individuals at the companies who had access to
sensitive data.
"In this case we saw a lot more reconnaissance done upfront, which is a shift
people may not have been aware of," Kurtz told V3.co.uk.
