China, Google, Internet Explorer and Cyber Attacks

These are few of the hot topics in the news in the past week. A number of articles have been released alerting users to a vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer that played a role in the recent cyber attack on Google, as well as in attacks on a list of at least 20 other well known organizations.

The attacks originated from China. Understandably Google is now carefully considering how to proceed with regard to continuing to offer service in China. Google is currently investigating a number of cyber attacks which have been dubbed 'Operation Aurora' by experts at McAffee.

According to research summarized by Robert Lemos, a freelance journalist for MIT's MIT’s Technology Review, CIO.com and SecurityFocus, the recent attack on Google seemed to be used for surveillance and originated from 6 IP addresses in Taiwan.

Yet another article released on Info Security's website today discusses the type of code used in the attack on Google, which appeared to be in development as far back as 2006.

To get additional news and updates related to the attacks, you can visit the Technology section of the BBC News, the Unsafe Bits weblog or the Official Google Blog.