Google e-mail accounts compromised by 'Chinese hackers'

[Gerald]

Hackers in China have compromised personal e-mail accounts of hundreds of top US officials, military personnel and journalists, Google has said.

The US company said a campaign to obtain passwords originated in Jinan and was aimed at monitoring e-mail.

Google said its security was not breached but indicated individuals' passwords were obtained through fraud.

Chinese political activists and officials in other Asian countries were also targeted, Google said.

"Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users' passwords and monitor their emails," the company said on Wednesday.

"We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities."

In Washington, the White House said it was investigating the reports but did not believe official US government e-mail accounts had been breached.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13623378

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/technology/02google.html?_r=1&hp


Note: 1 June 2011 Last updated at 22:36 GMT

[August]

I love how it says "Hackers in China" as if we didn't know who was behind it. :roll:

[Stealhead]

Those must have been the personal e-mail accounts of the military members not their military ones those are .mils and are lastnamefirstnamerank@base orcommand.mil I doubt they'd hack those so easily.

Still how did these Chinese hackers know that they where hacking the accounts of military members?:hmmm: A good lesson in why OPSEC is so important(loose lips sink ships).I never spoke of military duties off base in any detail nor over the phone or in e-mails and I still don't say very much about my old job not any technical or ops details anyway.I have an old friend who is in military intelligence security he hates sites like Facebook with a passion because of OPSEC loopholes from members of Facebook who are the military and give out details even what seems minor is useful to someone who knows what to look for.

[Gerald]

It is not only military personnel in the U.S as they tried to access, it affects other countries also.

[the_tyrant]

this is old, very old

a few years ago, these guys had great success with targeted phishing
what they did was, they somehow attacked the DNS servers, and redirected everyone who tried to visit gmail.com to their attacks site

so in other words, lets assume you were in China, and you type gmail.com into
your browser's url bar
you are taken to a site that looks like the real deal, but instead it is a attack site, set up to trick you into entering your email and password.
you enter your email and password, and they end up getting your email and password.

what can you do to protect yourself? Well against attacks like this you stand little chance
you can either check the source code of the site itself (really hard), or edit your hosts file. I might post s tutorial in the computer hardware/software section if you guys are interested.

and i tell you, the honkers ("non government supported" commie hackers) has to have official support, and support from the ISPs, although they claim they are patriotic citizens working on their own

[Gerald]

It is possible to protect themselves in many ways, before this stuff may be raised, it's all about knowledge and access to equipment in some cases, but of course there are easy solutions to this.

[Gerald]

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/5971/jpgooglepopup.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/jpgooglepopup.jpg/)
A Google office in Beijing. The company says recent attacks on Gmail apparently began in Jinan, a provincial capital in China.

[Gerald]

Soon enough problem to be solved ... I guess

[Gerald]

SAN FRANCISCO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that the F.B.I. would investigate allegations by Google that China was the origin of clandestine attacks on its Gmail service.

Mrs. Clinton characterized the charges as “very serious” and said that the Obama administration was disturbed by the charges of the attacks, aimed at stealing the passwords and monitoring the e-mail of several hundred people, including senior government officials in the United States, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries, military personnel and journalists.

“We are obviously very concerned about Google’s announcement,” Mrs. Clinton said. “These allegations are very serious, we take them seriously, we’re looking into them.”

She referred reporters to Google for details, “and to the F.B.I., which will be conducting the investigation.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/technology/03google.html?_r=1&hp


Note: Update Record, Published: June 2, 2011

[yubba]

:hmmm:you think, that's what happen too Weiner, so he might have got whacked, oh I mean hacked.

[kiwi_2005]

top US officials, military personnel




Why would they use gmail? Gmail is for us nobodies.

[Stealhead]

It was their personal e-mail accounts not their official duty .mil ones.

[August]

Why would they use gmail? Gmail is for us nobodies.


Ease of access maybe?

[Gerald]

Gmail, has a high safety level, and the goal was to try and test what protection it has against this stuff, and this has of course occurred other players.