Response to the following post needed, needs to be a dialogue:

We have seen attacks both in government and private sectors. As attacks continue to grow and the need for security grows, we will look more in depth into an attack that occurred sometime ago. The name of this attack is called “Operation Aurora”.

On January of 2010 was the day the cyber security world has come to know about a great and sophisticated attack which came as a surprise to many in the manner it was conducted. An APT based attack named by McAfee as “Operation Aurora” attacked high profile corporations to gain valuable intellectual property (Riley2011). Among the companies that were hit by Operation Aurora were Google, Yahoo, Juniper Networks, Symantec, and Northrop Grumman. Many questions began to arise as to the origin of the attack, the purpose of this attack and why did it occur. Key players that have been involved and the list of questions continued as the investigation was in progress. The name Operation “Aurora”, comes from a reference in the malware to the name of a file folder named Aurora that was on the computer of one of the attackers. So how did they gain access and were successful in this attack. We will examine this further and look in depth the key players involved and some leads pointing towards the Chinese government.

When investigations and evidence was collected around the malware part of this operation, it showed that Operation Aurora was an example of highly effective malware penetration that affected the systems (Schwartz 2013). From evidence also shows that the operation which many blamed on the Chinese government did not come from the government itself but key factors within Chinese systems and native language malware operations. In return this led many to believe that some elements within the Chinese government might have been involved. We must also note that malicious hacking is very strong and common in China and Eastern European nations. As the debate goes on whether this activity received any form of state sponsorship, the malware operation remains a funded and significant risk to intellectual property in the enterprise (Riley2011).

This is a major concern for our nation and many other nation's defense. The stealing of intellectual property allows these nations to steal technology from developed countries. It is also dangerous because it can fall into the wrong hands or the wrong form of government we do not associate or have any relationships.

References

Riley, M. (2011, February 28). Morgan Stanley Attacked by China-Based Hackers Who Hit Google . . Retrieved June 19, 2014, from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-28/morgan-stanley-network-hacked-in-same-china-based-attacks-that-hit-google.html

Schwartz, M. J. (2013, May 21). Google Aurora Hack Chinese Operation. . Retrieved June 16, 2014, from http://www.darkreading.com/attacks-and-breaches/google-aurora-hack-was-chinese-counterespionage-operation/d/d-id/1110060