Hackers from china have compromised many google accounts of top US officials and other political leaders from Asian countries. Google made a statement regarding the issue saying that their own security systems have not been breached but individual accounts have been hacked through fraud. Google also notified the respective members and their governments regarding the breach. The matter becomes sensitive as these officials handle top secret information on classified subjects. The passwords were acquired through a internet practice called ‘spear phising’ which misguides an account user to provide his account information to the hacker who had created a page similar to that of google. Analyst say it is very hard to find if it was authorized by governments or done by individual hackers. The difference between the both would be that if it was carried out by a government it will not be considered as a cyber crime but cyber espionage. This comes in the wake of a statement issued by the White House which said an act of cyber terrorism will be met with real time military consequences.

Report by Geejo Francis