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Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

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Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#101
post #70
post #18

I guess we will be seing baiduu news, baiduu image search, bmail, bdrive sometime soon! :-)

I'd say it's a safe bet that stealing Google's source code wouldn't help much with replicating their datacenter infrastructure.

Baidu already uses Hadoop's HDFS and MapReduce. They also support Hypertable. I would guess that they could probably put "something" together over time.

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#102
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure. But as I understand it, most people at Google are running Linux on their desktops. I'd expect most browser testing to be taking place in VMs or on separate boxes, and under test accounts -- which would have made the level of infiltration described in the article more difficult.

Companies like Google try to make their employees happy. If someone prefers Windows XP they are aloud to use it.

They have to yell to get XP?

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#103
post #20
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, a 0-day exploit in the Adobe Reader software which Adobe knew about and refused to fix for months (since it would break their upgrade schedule).

They're denying it though, blaming it on IE only: http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/01/no_evidence_to_...

Considering the original report was unsourced, I'm inclined to believe them

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#104
Why are they routinely using IE6 (or any IE)??? Firefox + NoScript + AV = much harder. Acrobat is bloatware, there are alternatives. Scripting should not be allowed in Acrobat by default. Using IE6 with scripting enabled is just asking for trouble. Ultra sophisticated meets ultra outdated.

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#105
post #61
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the page is setup by a local Christian. It's observable phenomenon that all Christian Chinese favor Google more than any other search engines.

Isn't the Christian/Catholic Church in China run by the Party?

There are a large number of secret house churches in China. They are illegal though and hosting one or participating in one can land you in jail or worse.

Doesn't stop them though so the author may be one of those.

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#106

Why/How is McAffee involved? Would a company like Google really outsource the cleanup/forensics of an attack?

Yes, definitely, although it was Mandiant that Google brought in, McAfee was working for one of the other companies affected it appears.

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#108
post #84
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what better place to start than with Google and Adobe's source code? I wonder if Microsoft was targeted too.

i'm dropping linux and going to use openbsd as my desktop. see ya.

I wouldn't be that worried on my home environment as I'm not that much of a target and am fairly wary of dodgy emails, but I'd prefer it if more major companies with expensive stuff that can be stolen take computer security a lot more seriously.

For example having white-listed software only able to run (of course engineers need to install stuff all the time so they might have to be a different case, but joe bloggs shouldn't need anything new - it can be assessed by security before installing).

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#109
post #77
post #69

I wonder how much smart people / money / hardware / etc you need to start an attack that sophisticated.

Really not that much. Once you find a good exploit, the payload code is copy and paste for a lot of it. The payload issue is a solved problem with lots of available source code and knowledge out there for free.

This attack sounds more complicated then your typical metasploit attack http://www.metasploit.com/

Re: Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show

#110
It seems to me that the word "sophisticated" is being misused here. Rather, I would say "knowledgeable."

If you, even within your general field (say mathematics), talk to an expert, he will easily give you arguments that will seem sophisticated to you, and simple to him. He's spent more time learning, getting familiar with, and thinking about those arguments, and that's the simple reason.

Here, the Chinese government is through a nationalistic sentiment endorsing hacking and education about the same. It is a large country, and many of the people conducting the attacks were not amateurs, using already established techniques. They were professionals, I wager, learning, getting familiar with, and thinking about how to attain their hacking-goals.

An educated person, in any subject, will seem infinitely more sophisticated than a non-educated one. And I argue that China, more than anybody else, invests into young men doing just that.

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