New Details Emerge About Google Hackers

According to Financial Times, U.S. officials have tracked down the authors of the malicious code used against Google in the recent attack.

First, U.S. investigators narrowed down the launch of the program to computers inside two educational institutions in China. Now, they've found a hacker, a "freelance security consultant in his 30s", who wrote a part of the code that exploited a security hole in Internet Explorer, and was ultimately used to break into computers of Google employees. This hacker has also published parts of the code on a forum, describing it as something he was "working on," and Chinese officials also had special access to the code.

According to The Wall Street Journal, however, the investigators cannot necessarily point out the individuals in the attack, but have rather tracked down a "prominent Asian hacking group" responsible for the attacks. It's a group known to attack corporations, and "not the U.S. military or other government agencies".

It is still unknown whether the attacks can be linked to Chinese authorities, who denied any involvement in the attacks.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bunhill

Tags: china, Google, hackers

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