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China haven for cyber criminals: McAfee
Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service

Google’s exit may benefit India IT honchos in Bangalore, the cyber capital of India, say the exit of Google from China could be a boon for India. They say that with companies leaving China on ethical grounds, the Indian IT industry was bound to grow. The government here, in last 15 years, had only banned about 20 websites in all and that also was done when it was found that these websites were carrying contents that could harm national interest, sovereignty or could cause public disorder. On the other hand, out of the four most visited websites in the world -- Google, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube -- the last three were already inaccessible in China. Now, Google was also on its way out from that country.

Chinese hackers tried to hack our computers: NSA London: Chinese hackers tried to break into computers in the office of India’s National Security Adviser and some other government departments last month, NSA MK Narayanan has told a leading British daily. “This was not the first instance of an attempt to hack into our computers,” The Times quoted him as saying. Narayanan said his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15, the same date that US companies reported cyber attacks from China. — PTI

Bangalore, January 18
Long before Internet search giant Google threatened to move out of China in protest against censorship and hacking of gmail accounts of Chinese human right activists, a reputed Internet security company had identified China as one of the two countries becoming “haven for cyber criminals”.

The “virtual criminology report”, released in December 2008 by California-based McAfee Inc, reputed as the world’s largest dedicated technology security company, described Russia as the other country having the dubious status of a haven for cyber criminals.

Google’s charge against China has renewed interest in McAfee’s findings about the activities of cyber criminals in the communist country. A query made to the company’s head office in California in this regard was not answered.

However, in Bangalore, McAfee Inc issued a press statement today on the subject of Google versus China. The statement detailed McAfee’s “guidance to help organisations determine if they were targeted in the same sophisticated cyber (like the one in China) attack that hit a growing list of companies, including Google”.

“This is the largest and most sophisticated cyber attack we have seen in years,” the statement quoted McAfee worldwide chief technology officer George Kurtz as having said. The statement added that as a result of the attack, Windows users currently faced danger due to the public disclosure of a serious vulnerability in Internet Explorer.

“The risk has been compounded because the attack code that exploits this Internet Explorer vulnerability has now been posted in the public domain, increasing the possibility of widespread attacks,” the statement said, claiming it could provide protection against the threats related to the attack on Google.

While McAfee Inc is obviously interested in exploiting the business opportunity that the controversy has opened up, the reason behind Google’s decision to withdraw from China was still being debated. Google, which played by the Chinese government’s censorship rules for four years or so, has also been accused of decking up a business decision with noble values.