The Aurora Hackers

A group of hackers rather than a single one, these were the people responsible for “Operation Aurora“, an international and complex hack in 2009 that targeted 34 companies including Google and Yahoo!. The hackers are believed to come from China as part of the Elderwood Gang – a group of hackers based in Beijing. A Shanghai-based group, PLA Unit-61398, were also believed to be involved, in this massive operation. Google were the first to make the attack public, stating on their blog that they had had their intellectual property stolen – it seems that the hackers were after the source code of these internet giants, rather than any personal information although it later emerged that certain gmail accounts had also been hacked. The hackers behind Aurora have never been caught and said to still be actively hacking. The main result of the whole episode was that Google withdrew from China entirely.