Operation Aurora

The hackers could have access to software configuration management systems (SCM) in many companies including Google and Adobe. This allowed them to steal the source code or make stealthy changes in the source of the many products.

The SCM was developed by a company called Perforce. This system has had some known vulnerabilities (detected by McAfee). The attacker most likely exploited those security holes to gain unauthorized access to the system.

Impact

More than 34 organizations affected, including Symantec, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley, Dow Chemical, Yahoo, Rackspace, Adobe and Google.

Type of compromise

The attacker was able to compromise different tools used within the organizations to target their version control systems and exfiltrate source code and sensitive data.