Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that the accusations of piracy in China over Google with Gmail accounts from American officials, journalists and Chinese dissidents are "very serious". "We are very concerned (...) These allegations are very serious, we take them seriously, and review," said the head of U.S. diplomacy during a press conference.
"Google told us about the accusations, which raises serious concerns and questions. We hope the Chinese government explains," Clinton said in a statement. "The ability to work with confidence in cyberspace is essential to society and modern economy," the secretary of state.
Hillary announced that it will make "a speech about the importance of Internet freedom in the 21st century next week, when further information on this topic and the facts are clearer."
On Thursday, China rejected the accusations of espionage made by Google. On Wednesday, the Internet giant would be denounced "a campaign to crack passwords of users" over the internet in China originating from Gmail accounts from American officials, journalists and Chinese dissidents.
According to the BBC a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry is "unacceptable" to blame China. Google has not directly blamed the Chinese government, but said operations were originated in the campaign hacking originated in Jinan. "Hacking is an international issue and China is also a victim. The accusations of support for hacking are completely unfounded and have ulterior motives," said the spokesman Hong Law
According to Eric Grosse, director of the engineering team at Google Security Team, the company's official blog, "The goal of this effort appears to be overseeing the content of this e-mail users." The statement said the theft of passwords sought to change the settings for routing of messages as well as third parties to ensure access to accounts.
The operation has affected hundreds of people including senior government officials from the United States, China's political activists, soldiers, journalists and officials from various Asian countries, especially South Korea, said Grosse.
In a statement, Google said it had "detected and ended the campaign, conducted through phishing, said the victims, secured accounts and notified the relevant government authorities." The company also said that Gmail's internal systems were not affected, and the theft of this information is not the result of a security issue of the service. The White House said it was investigating the reports but does not believe the official accounts of the U.S. government have been breached.
It is not the first time Google's China denounces a cyberattack. In January 2010, the company announced that its operations had been the target of attacks in order to have access to the correspondence of Chinese dissidents, in addition to stealing the company's trade secrets and codes. This complaint led to a growing tension that had even the intervention of the U.S. government that led Google to temporarily close its search engine in the country. Tensions subsided at the beginning of last year, when the Chinese government has renewed its license to the company and search engine no longer automatically redirecting Chinese Internet portal to free Hong Kong.
