Two Chinese schools and a Ukrainian professor are involved in Google cracking
US intelligence agencies came close to uncovering the high-profile case of hacking Google and other US corporations in January 2010. Recall that in the framework of the Aurora operation, unknown persons tried to steal corporate trade secrets, as well as to gain access to the correspondence of Chinese human rights activists.
As it turned out, the traces lead to two educational institutions in China: this is an elite Shanghai University , whose students have repeatedly won at international computer and mathematical competitions (in fact, the best university in the world according to the ICPC Olympiads), as well as Lanxiang Vocational School which is located in the province of Shandong in eastern China. Her computer graduates often find work in the military, and the VTS itself works with the support of the Chinese Ministry of Defense, according to the NY Times and FT .
True, even now, experts are not ready to make an unequivocal conclusion that the Chinese government or other customers from China ordered the attack. First, the involvement in the case of one of the teachers of the school in Lansane, a computer science professor from Ukraine working under a contract (30–40 years old, name is not disclosed). Secondly, the computer network at Lansan School was created by a firm with close connections to Baidu, it is the largest search engine in China. These are two unrelated threads, which indicate that the attacker may not be the Chinese government, but someone else.
Some US experts say that linking to pro-government institutions in China could be used as a cover by hackers from another country. Perhaps this is a global industrial espionage operation, to which an “attack” on Chinese human rights defenders “hooked” only to divert their eyes in order to bring intelligence from the real trail. We repeat, such versions are expressed even by some American experts. If so, then hiding the ends in the Chinese pro-government institutions is indeed a very tricky move, because China will never cooperate with US intelligence agencies and will not give them full access to investigate for obvious reasons (it’s no secret that they themselves are engaged in or are planning to engage in similar attacks, although this does not prove their involvement specifically with the Aurora operation).
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The head of the propaganda department of the party committee of the Shanghai University Liu Yuxiang (Liu Yuxiang) has already commented that if their high school’s involvement in the attacks is confirmed, an internal investigation will be launched. It is unlikely that it will allow the Americans.
The dean of the faculty of computer science school Lansang completely denies the school’s involvement in the attacks. He said that his students did not have enough qualifications for hacking Google or other corporate American sites, they are just students.
An NSA investigation also showed that the activity in the framework of Operation Aurora began much earlier than expected, namely in April 2009. As previously reported, hackers used servers in Taiwan, and also used the original hacking technique with sending mail on behalf of the victim’s acquaintance (man-in-the-mailbox) and an undocumented vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which the above-mentioned computer professor from Ukraine allegedly discovered and described .
As it turned out, the traces lead to two educational institutions in China: this is an elite Shanghai University , whose students have repeatedly won at international computer and mathematical competitions (in fact, the best university in the world according to the ICPC Olympiads), as well as Lanxiang Vocational School which is located in the province of Shandong in eastern China. Her computer graduates often find work in the military, and the VTS itself works with the support of the Chinese Ministry of Defense, according to the NY Times and FT .
True, even now, experts are not ready to make an unequivocal conclusion that the Chinese government or other customers from China ordered the attack. First, the involvement in the case of one of the teachers of the school in Lansane, a computer science professor from Ukraine working under a contract (30–40 years old, name is not disclosed). Secondly, the computer network at Lansan School was created by a firm with close connections to Baidu, it is the largest search engine in China. These are two unrelated threads, which indicate that the attacker may not be the Chinese government, but someone else.
Some US experts say that linking to pro-government institutions in China could be used as a cover by hackers from another country. Perhaps this is a global industrial espionage operation, to which an “attack” on Chinese human rights defenders “hooked” only to divert their eyes in order to bring intelligence from the real trail. We repeat, such versions are expressed even by some American experts. If so, then hiding the ends in the Chinese pro-government institutions is indeed a very tricky move, because China will never cooperate with US intelligence agencies and will not give them full access to investigate for obvious reasons (it’s no secret that they themselves are engaged in or are planning to engage in similar attacks, although this does not prove their involvement specifically with the Aurora operation).
')
The head of the propaganda department of the party committee of the Shanghai University Liu Yuxiang (Liu Yuxiang) has already commented that if their high school’s involvement in the attacks is confirmed, an internal investigation will be launched. It is unlikely that it will allow the Americans.
The dean of the faculty of computer science school Lansang completely denies the school’s involvement in the attacks. He said that his students did not have enough qualifications for hacking Google or other corporate American sites, they are just students.
An NSA investigation also showed that the activity in the framework of Operation Aurora began much earlier than expected, namely in April 2009. As previously reported, hackers used servers in Taiwan, and also used the original hacking technique with sending mail on behalf of the victim’s acquaintance (man-in-the-mailbox) and an undocumented vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which the above-mentioned computer professor from Ukraine allegedly discovered and described .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/85188/
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