Report: 'At least 34' firms attacked at the same time as Google
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Washington Post asserts that many U.S. companies were targeted in the same network security and email breach that affected Google and provoked the company's highly publicized spat with the Chinese government.
Unnamed sources told the Post that Yahoo, Symantec, Adobe, Dow Chemical, and Northrup Grumman were among the major firms targeted in the cyber attack, which was characterized by what security experts said in the same article was "a new level of sophistication."
The report also said that the response to Google's threat to pull out of China entirely was "heavily censored," though a state-run newspaper attacked the company in an editorial, calling it a "spoiled child." The Post's sources said that the attacks were carefully targeted at strategically important industries, adding fuel to the rumors that the Chinese government possibly had a hand in the attacks.
CNET reports that many of the companies said to have been attacked were unwilling to confirm or deny the Post's assertion, including Yahoo, which stated that it was against their company policies to comment on such issues.
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