Google attack just the tip of the iceberg

You must have heard about the China-based cyberattacks on search giant Google by now. At least one senior executive, McAfee Chief Technology Officer George Kurtz, has called the attacks on Google and other companies a "watershed moment in cybersecurity." In a blog post over the weekend, Kurtz wrote that "I believe this is the largest and most sophisticated cyber attack we have seen in years targeted at specific corporations."

The caliber of the attacks, which Google says are "highly sophisticated and targeted," the fact that it culminated "in the theft of intellectual property" and that it occurred after Google's decision to discontinue filtering search results in China reflects the company's belief that the perpetrator is the Chinese government.

Indeed, James Mulvenon of the Defense Group consultancy observed, "For Google to have made such a profound decision, to turn its back on the fastest growing economy in the world, it had to have been more than a bunch of dissident email accounts."

So far, it appears that source code was stolen from more than 30 Silicon Valley companies targeted. So far, Adobe Systems has confirmed that it was targeted by an attack, while other companies such as Juniper Networks, Northrop Grumman, and Dow Chemical were also reportedly targets.

Indeed, reports indicate that Google's going public merely puts the spotlight on a situation that has long existed. Larry Wortzel, a longtime China espionage expert summed up the situation: "When you see human espionage directed against specific technologies like quiet submarine drive systems [or] naval propulsion systems...a reasonable analyst will conclude that it is probably government-directed."

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at NPR 

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