Targeted Attack Hits Chinese Gmail Accounts, Google Might Exit China
Google plans to curb its controversial practice of censoring search results in China after uncovering a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” designed to steal information about human rights activists from its Gmail service and at least 20 other large companies.
The attack that hit Google in mid-December originated in China and was aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Although only two email accounts appear to have been breached, “accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China” have been routinely breached, most likely as a result of phishing or malware attacks, the company said Tuesday.
The discovery came as Google uncovered similar attacks on at least 20 other companies in the financial, technology, media, and chemical industries. In light of the revelations, Google said it is considering shuttering its Chinese operations altogether.
“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,” Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond wrote. “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.”
Drummond said Google has already used the investigation findings to introduce security improvements. The company is also in the process of sharing its findings with law enforcement authorities and the other targeted sites.
“We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech,” Drummond wrote.
He didn’t provide details about the two breached Gmail accounts except to say that “activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.” The names of the 20 large companies were also omitted.
Google, whose corporate credo is “Don’t be evil,” entered the Chinese market in 2006 with the promise to censor search results that were objectionable to the country’s government.
Credit: The Register
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