Two Chinese schools have been linked to the cyber attacks on
Google and dozens of other companies last year.
Computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang
Vocational School in China reportedly played a role in the attacks,
according to unnamed sources cited in The New York Times.
Lanxiang Vocational School, The New York Times says, was created
with funding from the Chinese military and trains computer
scientists for the Chinese military. Its network is operated by a
company with ties to Baidu, Google's most significant rival in
China.
Evidence of the role of the two schools' computers was
reportedly presented by a U.S. military contractor at a meeting of
security professionals.
If true, the finding adds further weight to the views of
security researchers that the attacks came from China.
While computer security experts in the U.S. suspect that the
attackers have ties to the Chinese government, no conclusive
evidence has been presented that the Chinese government was
involved in the attacks. The Chinese government in January
emphatically denied any such involvement. It has maintained that it
is a frequent victim in cyberattacks.
The prevalence of illegally copied software in China ensures
that many systems there are in fact poorly defended. Cybercriminals
outside of China do exploit the country's vulnerable infrastructure
for their operations.
Some computer security experts contend that the attacks on
Google and other companies are routine and ongoing. A report on
Thursday that some 2,500 businesses and government organizations
had been compromised by a Zeus Trojan variant and turned into
botnet zombies was met with yawns by security vendors not involved
with the research.
"In the world of cybersecurity the 'kneber' botnet is,
unfortunately, just another botnet," said McAfee in an e-mailed
statement. "With 75,000 infected machines, Kneber is not even that
big, there are much larger botnets." The company says that in the
last three months of 2009, just under 4 million computers were
compromised and hijacked by botnet malware.