Google Investigates China Employee Involvement in Cyber Attack

January 18th, 2010 at 4:23 PM - News by Bryan Chaffin

Google is investigating whether or not employees in its Chinese operations were involved in a major cyber attack that originated in that country. The Wall Street Journal reported that some staff have had their access to the company's network cut off, but also noted that such investigations were standard for Google when investigating such attacks.

Google announced the attack last week, and said it had decided to stop censoring content on its search engine in the market in response to that attack. As that violates Chinese law, the company said it was discussing the situation with the Chinese government, and would "review the feasibility" of doing business in the country.

"We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective," David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer for Google, said in the blog post announcing the attack.

The Journal reported that it was unclear if any evidence that implicated Google China staff members had been uncovered, or whether the investigation was limited to the above-mentioned attacks or to other attempts to access Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents. Google employees approximately 700 people in China.