US to protest against Chinese hacker attacks

In the coming week, the United States government plans to deliver an official note of protest to the Chinese government and demand an explanation for the hacker attacks launched against Google and other US companies in the past few weeks. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told the AFP news agency : "[The note] will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it". US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had, earlier, informally asked for an explanation from China for the targeted cyber attacks. Clinton plans to release a policy statement about the freedom of information on the internet on Thursday.

The US government backed Google's decision to no longer submit to China's internet censorship even if this could lead to Google's complete withdrawal from the Chinese market. Code-named "Aurora", the attack exploited security holes in Internet Explorer to target Google as well as about 30 further US companies such as Yahoo, Symantec, Juniper Networks, Northrop Grumman and Dow Chemical in the time between mid December and early January.

See also:

• Recent attacks on Google exploited previously unknown hole in IE, a report from The H.
• Google considers closing its Chinese operation, a report from The H.
• US report: China is expanding its corporate cyber espionage, a report from The H.

(crve)