Google in December disclosed that it had been the victim of a targeted cyberattack designed to steal intellectual property, e-mail and other data from the company. It said the attacks appeared to originate from China and also affected many other high-tech companies.
The attacks, dubbed Operation Aurora, for the botnet that was used to launch it, were described by Google and many in the industry as being particularly sophisticated and state-sponsored. Some called it a classic example of a new category of Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) facing many commercial enterprises.
According to Damballa, however, the actual attack data suggests otherwise. The Dynamic DNS (DDNS) command and Control system that was used to control the Aurora botnet for instance, is “old school” and is rarely used today by professional criminal botnet operators. The reliance on a DDNS command and control infrastructure suggests that those behind the Google attacks were “new and amateur botnet operators,” Damballa said.
The data also suggests that the attacks may not have been as highly targeted as Google and others might have assumed them to be, according to Damballa. The Aurora attacks appear to have first originated in July 2009 from mainland China. According to Damballa, a university in China, and a Chinese collocation facility were critical “early incubators” of the infection.
By: Brant
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