Google cyber-attacks linked to Chinese schools

By Shane Richmond, Head of Technology (Editorial) Published: 11:26AM GMT 19 Feb 2010

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Google claims it was attacked by Chinese hackers

The New York Times reports that two educational institutions - Lanxiang Vocational School, which has links to the Chinese military, and Shanghai Jiaotong University - were involved in a series of cyber-attacks on Google and other American corporations which may have begun as early as April last year.

Several companies, including Adobe and Rackspace, have confirmed that they were also targeted in the attacks and other targets are thought to include Yahoo! and Northrup Grumman.

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Last month Google said it was no longer prepared to censor the results delivered by its Chinese search engine and threatened to pull out of the country unless it was allowed to operate uncensored. At the same time Google announced that it had been the victim of a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on its servers, which it said was an attempt to hack the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China.

The Chinese government has denied being behind the attacks, which are said to have exploited security flaws in Microsofts Internet Explorer web browser.

However, by turning the debate into one about censorship, Google has brought the American government into the debate. Last month, Hillary Clinton challenged the Chinese on censorship, saying: "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."

Googles Chinese search engine remains in operation and its results are still censored.