First it was China. Now Vietnam. Google has revealed details of another wave of cyber attacks emanating from the Asia-Pacific region targeting Vietnamese activists using the Internet to express opposition to a controversial mining project.
While the attack is apparently unrelated to the China imbroglio, the mining company at issue is a subsidiary of a Chinese state firm. Google and McAfee offer the details of the incident and warn about the rise in politically motivated cyber attacks.
eSecurity Planet has the story.
Google has come forward with details about a wave of malware targeting activists in Vietnam who were protesting a government-led mining operation in partnership with a prominent Chinese company.
The cyber attacks were less sophisticated than the coordinated assault on Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and more than 20 other firms that the company traced to China and made public in January, but nonetheless could have hit tens of thousands of users who downloaded a bogus keyboard driver, according to Neel Mehta, a member of Google’s security team.
“This particular malware broadly targeted Vietnamese computer users around the world,” Mehta said in a blog post. “Specifically, these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country.”