Question description
Response to the following post needed, needs to be a dialogue:
We have seen attacks both in government and private sectors.
As attacks continue to grow and the need for security grows, we will look more
in depth into an attack that occurred sometime ago. The name of this attack is
called “Operation Aurora”.
On January of 2010 was the day the cyber security world has
come to know about a great and sophisticated attack which came as a surprise to
many in the manner it was conducted. An APT based attack named by McAfee as
“Operation Aurora” attacked high profile corporations to gain valuable
intellectual property (Riley2011). Among the companies that were hit by
Operation Aurora were Google, Yahoo, Juniper Networks, Symantec, and Northrop
Grumman. Many questions began to arise as to the origin of the attack, the purpose
of this attack and why did it occur. Key players that have been involved and
the list of questions continued as the investigation was in progress. The name
Operation “Aurora”, comes from a reference in the malware to the name of a file
folder named Aurora that was on the computer of one of the attackers. So how
did they gain access and were successful in this attack. We will examine this
further and look in depth the key players involved and some leads pointing
towards the Chinese government.
When investigations and evidence was collected around the
malware part of this operation, it showed that Operation Aurora was an example
of highly effective malware penetration that affected the systems (Schwartz
2013). From evidence also shows that the operation which many blamed on the
Chinese government did not come from the government itself but key factors
within Chinese systems and native language malware operations. In return this
led many to believe that some elements within the Chinese government might have
been involved. We must also note that malicious hacking is very strong and
common in China and Eastern European nations. As the debate goes on whether
this activity received any form of state sponsorship, the malware operation
remains a funded and significant risk to intellectual property in the
enterprise (Riley2011).
This is a major concern for our nation and many other
nation’s defense. The stealing of intellectual property allows these nations to
steal technology from developed countries. It is also dangerous because it can
fall into the wrong hands or the wrong form of government we do not associate
or have any relationships.
References
Riley, M. (2011, February 28). Morgan Stanley Attacked by
China-Based Hackers Who Hit Google . . Retrieved June 19, 2014, from
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-28/morgan-stanley-network-hacked-in-same-china-based-attacks-that-hit-google.html
Schwartz, M. J. (2013, May 21). Google Aurora Hack Chinese
Operation. . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/google-aurora-hack-was-chinese-counterespionage-operation/d/d-id/1110060
