U.S. law firm behind China piracy suit targeted in attacks

By Elinor Mills
InSecurity Complex
CNET News
January 13, 2010

A U.S. law firm representing a Web content-filtering company in a piracy lawsuit against the Chinese government said on Wednesday that it received malicious e-mails in a targeted attack from China similar to recent attacks on Google and other U.S. companies.

At least 10 employees at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione received the e-mails on Monday and Tuesday, according to Gregory Fayer, a lawyer at the Los Angeles-based firm.

The firm filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit last week on behalf of Solid Oak Software against the Chinese government, two Chinese software developers, and seven PC manufacturers. The suit alleges that they illegally copied code from Solid Oak's Cybersitter Web content-filtering program and distributed the code as part of a Chinese government-sponsored censorship program involving China-created Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software.

The e-mails sent to the law firm, mostly to lawyers, came in three different formats, were made to look like they came from Fayer or one of two other lawyers at the firm, and had attachments or included links to outside Web sites, Fayer said. Some of the content of the e-mails expressed concern over viruses and other potential security issues, while another gave a link to an FTP site where large files could be downloaded, he said.