Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
January 14, 2010

Hackers seeking source code from Google, Adobe and dozens of other high-profile companies used unprecedented tactics that combined encryption, stealth programming and an unknown hole in Internet Explorer, according to new details released by researchers at anti-virus firm McAfee.

“We have never ever, outside of the defense industry, seen commercial industrial companies come under that level of sophisticated attack,”
says Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research for McAfee.
“It’s totally changing the threat model.”

In the wake of Threat Level’s story disclosing that a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer was exploited by the hackers to gain access to Google and other companies, Microsoft has published an advisory about the flaw that it already had in the works. McAfee has also added protection to its products to detect the malware that was used in the attacks and has now gone public with a number of new details about the hacks.

Google announced Tuesday that it had been the target of a “highly sophisticated” and coordinated hack attack against its corporate network. It said the hackers had stolen intellectual property and sought access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. The attack had originated from China, the company said.

Minutes later, Adobe acknowledged in a blog post that it discovered Jan.
2 that it also had been the target of a “sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies.”