18 Jan 2010

Google attack 'put data security at risk'

An attack on Google could have resulted in the data security of up to 20 companies being put in jeopardy last month, it has been revealed.

Amichai Shulman, chief technology officer of Imperva, said the phishing attack attempted to access the Gmail accounts of a number of human rights activists in China.

The company noted that as a result of this attack, it will be reviewing its China policy, as the event caused serious issues for a number of top firms whose data was put at risk by the lapse in security.

Mr Shulman commented: "People are still falling for the simplest tricks in the book. Send them an email with the right content in the 'to' field and a compelling text and they'll do anything - including disclosing their password and installing malware."

According to Google, many accounts have been accessed via phishing scams or malware placed on users' computers and this is an issue which needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.