Underscoring the very real 21st century threat of cyber terrorism, officials from Google confirmed last night that hackers from inside China have apparently attempted to breach the security of Gmail account users via a “campaign” meant to obtain sensitive user information.
“We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing,” Google said, referencing the nefarious but all-too-common practice of email hacking practice where hackers attempt to evade and confuse users to into supplying sensitive information, like email account passwords.
“This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists,” Google said.
Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users’ passwords and monitor their emails. We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities.
Google says it remains committed to the security of its users and encourages several steps to better protect private information. Chief among the steps was switching to Chrome, Google’s own web browser.
“Review the security features offered by the Chrome browser. If you don’t already use Chrome, consider switching your browser to Chrome,” Google said.
