Vietnamese dissidents targeted by botnet attacks | Relevant Results. Cyberattacks were recently used to intimidate opponents of a mining project in Vietnam with ties to China, according to Google and McAfee. Malware that was disguised as a popular Vietnamese-language keyboard driver for Windows users was used to create a botnet, according to blog posts from Google's Neel Mehta and McAfee Chief Technical Officer George Kurtz. That botnet was then used to target blogs rallying against a bauxite mining project in Vietman, employing DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks to shut down those blogs, according to the posts. The two companies discovered the botnet and malware during an investigation into the causes of the cyberattacks leveled against Google and more than 30 U.S. companies late last year, which prompted Google's showdown with the Chinese government over censorship.
Users running the Vietnamese character software are advised to update their virus definitions to determine if the malware is present on their system. Vietnam denies involvement with cyberattacks | Security. The Vietnam government dismissed what it called "groundless" accusations that it was involved in recent cyberattacks used to intimidate opponents of a mining project in Vietnam. Malware disguised as a popular Vietnamese-language keyboard driver was used to create a botnet that targeted blogs rallying against a bauxite mining project in Vietman, according to blog posts from Google's Neel Mehta and McAfee Chief Technical Officer George Kurtz. "The perpetrators may have political motivations and may have some allegiance to the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam," Kurtz said in his blog. "The comments are groundless," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Nga said in a statement posted to the Ministry's Web site Monday.
"We have on many occasions clearly expounded our view on issues relating to access to and use of information and information technology, including the Internet. Google: Vietnam Pulling Similar Anti-Free Speech Cyberattacks to China. Google, probably still sore after its fight with the spiky Chinese authorities, has nevertheless opened a new front in its battle against Net censorship: It's discovered a huge cyberattack against people who contradict the Vietnamese government. The discovery was apparently made as part of Google's ongoing investigation into the allegedly China-sourced hack attacks that prompted the entire recent Google versus China fiasco. According to Google, something like tens of thousands of email accounts of Vietnamese-speakers around the World were targeted using malware planted in particular Web sites. The issue in question is bauxite mining in Vietnam, which is a politically and environmentally contentious issue--vocal activists around the Net are complaining about the government-backed efforts.
And this just doesn't fly with the Vietnamese government, which practices similar tight management of Net freedoms as the Chinese powers do. So is this really a call for a free and open global Net? Google speaks out over Vietnam cyber attacks. Google accused Vietnam on Wednesday of stifling political dissent with cyberattacks, the latest complaint by the internet giant against a communist regime following a public dispute with China over online censorship. Like China, Vietnam tightly controls the flow of information and has said it reserves the right to take "appropriate action" against Web sites it deems harmful to national security.
The cyberattacks targeted "potentially tens of thousands," a posting on Google's online security blog said. It said it was drawing attention to the Vietnam attacks because they underscored the need for the international community "to take cybersecurity seriously to help keep free opinion flowing". Advertisement Google apparently stumbled onto a scheme targeting Vietnamese-speaking internet users around the world while investigating the surveillance of e-mail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists, one analyst suggested. Google says Vietnam mine opponents under cyber attack. Internet giant Google says malicious software has been used to spy on tens of thousands of Vietnamese web users. The company said the cyber attacks appeared to target opponents of bauxite mining in Vietnam. Google said the malware was "damaging" but less sophisticated than recent attacks at the heart of the company's dispute with China. But computer security firm McAfee suggested the perpetrators could be connected to Vietnam's government.
Writing on his blog, Neel Mehta of Google's security team said the malware had "infected the computers of potentially tens of thousands of users" around the world. It installed itself when users downloaded the software needed to type Vietnamese characters, he said. The infected computers were then used to spy on the users or to block other sites "containing messages of political dissent". The mine operations have attracted criticism in Vietnam over concerns about environmental damage. The Vietnamese government has not responded to the allegations.