US authorities believe they may have identified the programming author who wrote the code used in the hacking attacks against search engine giant Google, according to an article in the Financial Times. After the discovery last week of the possible complicity of two schools in China with known ties to the military, US analysts say they may have determined which Chinese programmer wrote the code that used the security hole in Internet Explorer.
Unnamed government sources speaking with the Financial Times claim that the Chinese government had special access to the programmers work and that the programmer had posted some of his research on a hacking forum.
Mischel Kwon, former director of US CERT and now with RSA Security, said “We're realizing there are other aspects of this problem beyond the technological and that there are other agencies that need to get involved.”
Government officials told the Financial Times that the code programmer did not carry out the attack and may not have even wanted to hand over his research. The attacks appear to have been launched from the schools identified last week.