CIO’s Kenneth Corbin wrote a very interesting article on Operation Aurora, the infamous cyberattacks on Google (and a number of other entities) back in 2010. Many thought that Operation Aurora sought information on Chinese human rights advocates, and that is probably still true. However, Corbin explains that Operation Aurora had another aim:
Some of the hackers involved in the infamous Aurora attacks executed from China against dozens of major American companies were believed to be running a counter-intelligence operation probing whether the U.S. government had uncovered the identity of clandestine agents operating in the United States, according to Dave Aucsmith, senior director of Microsoft’s Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments.
. . .
[T]he attack on Microsoft looked to be a reconnaissance mission hackers were conducting to determine what type of surveillance U.S. authorities were conducting on undercover operatives through records obtained from the software giant via court orders.
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