Why you should care about Google being the victim of a cyber-attack
Recently Google announced that in mid-December of 2009 they had detected a large-scale attack that originated within China and that succeeded compromising a certain amount of their intellectual property.
Google also revealed that their investigation had uncovered that the same attack also succeeded in compromising over 20 large and well-known companies in the US. Some reports are now estimating that the actual number of victims is much higher. The attack and the assertion that it appears to have had some level of official support has been the basis of Google’s decision to discontinue operations in China.
Google have used the fact that the attack exposed information on human rights activists in China (and elsewhere) as the basis for framing their position around human rights and freedom of speech. Co-founder Sergey Brin drew on his personal family history in the former Soviet Union to underline the company’s commitment to principles they believe are foundational to the internet and a free society.
While the risk to human rights and freedom of speech is apparent to most, it is also important to understand the implications of the attack succeeding against so many large corporate entities.
It’s clear that we’re witnessing a significant shift in the way that data is viewed and valued. Data, and access to it, is now becoming the kind of resource that is being fought over. While the battle lines are hidden from the view of most of us, all of us have a stake in the outcome. It’s not as simple as the nationalistic wars of previous centuries. The internet doesn’t recognise traditional geographical borders, and the data being fought over is increasingly that of private companies, not governments.
This changing datascape is going to continue to grow as a battlefield and it may well be very difficult to determine which side is “right”. There’s no question that all of us should be concerned at Google falling victim to a concerted and large-scale cyber attack. We should also be concerned about how we want to shape the future we are participating in.
