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Yahoo also targeted by Chinese hackers, along with Google
By siliconindia
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Monday, 18 January 2010, 18:30 IST |
2 Comments
San Francisco: Last week a sophisticated Chinese cyber attack on U.S. corporations led Google to threaten China that it will leave the country, but it seems that Google was not the only company targeted. According to a source familiar with the attack, Yahoo has also been a victim of a similar attack but decided to keep mum after Google went public with the attack announcement. The two Internet search and email providers had discussed a highly coordinated attack originating in China prior to Google's high-profile announcement on Tuesday, the person said, according to Reuters.
Google said the hackers' primary goal was to access Gmail accounts of human rights activists, and that at least 20 other large companies had been targeted. It was unclear whether the attacks on Yahoo were also aimed at grabbing information off emails, or if they had been successful. Google got in touch with Yahoo "to share knowledge" - after determining through its own investigations that Yahoo had also fallen victim to cyber attacks - and Yahoo then confirmed to Google it "was already aware of similar issues on their side," the person said on condition of anonymity.
Yahoo said on Friday it does not generally disclose information about attacks on its systems, but the company takes security very seriously and takes appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach. Since Google reported the attacks, only Adobe Systems, Juniper Networks and Rackspace Hosting have acknowledged experiencing similar incidents. But the majority of victims have remained silent.
Analysts have said many companies choose not to publicize cyber attacks out of fear of exposing technological vulnerabilities and, in this case, of upsetting business relations with China. "They don't want to get any noses out of joint in Beijing," said Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Washington-based Economic Strategy Institute.
