Chinese hackers who breached Google in 2010 gained access to thousands of surveillance orders
May 21, 2013
In 2010, as part of what has been dubbed as Operation Aurora , Chinese hackers infiltrated a special database within Google's systems and gained access to a sensitive database worth of information about American surveillance targets. Google reported the hack publicly years ago, saying that the sophisticated attack resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property and the partial compromise of some human rights activists' email accounts. When the news first surfaced in 2010, Google said hackers stole the source code behind its search engine, and targeted email accounts of activists critical of China's human rights record. But recently discovered that the hackers also obtained surveillance information, including emails belonging to suspected spies, diplomats and terrorists which law enforcement officials had been monitoring. Google reported this breach to the FBI, resulting in a national security investigation. According to the sources, hackers were after the names of ...
