Google attack part of widespread spying effort U.S. firms face ongoing espionage from China

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9144221/Google_attack_part_of_widespread_spying_effort

From the article:

Google's decision Tuesday to risk walking away from the world's largest Internet market may have come as a shock, but security experts see it as the most public admission of a top IT problem for U.S. companies: ongoing corporate espionage originating from China.

It's a problem that the U.S. lawmakers have complained about loudly. In the corporate world, online attacks that appear to come from China have been an ongoing problem for years, but big companies haven't said much about this, eager to remain in the good graces of the world's powerhouse economy.

Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises.

The U.S. government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135105.htm">statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google's allegations "raise very serious concerns and questions."

"The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy," she said.