CTO Doubts Internet Explorer Vulnerability Was Behind China's Google Hack

Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman Doubts Internet Explorer Vulnerability Was Behind China's Google Hack

In response to McAfee’s claim that vulnerability in Internet Explorer played an important role in the recent attack against Google China, Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman cast doubt over the assertion.

“First, why are Google employees using IE and not Google’s own browser, Chrome? This doesn’t make sense,” explained Shulman.

“Second, to execute an attack this sophisticated, it likely occurred as a result of spear phishing Google employees to gain access to Google users credentials. A hacker would have to jump through many hoops inside an internal network. This requires network—not browser—vulnerabilities so that the attacker can communicate with malware inside Google’s internal network,” explained Shulman.

“Unfortunately, blaming Microsoft is all too easy and it’s leading to a panic. France and Germany are now recommending that its citizens not use Internet Explorer given its role in the recent Google hacking incident,” he said citing today’s decision by the leading European governments. “Could this be a clever way to boost Google Chrome downloads?”

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