Data Breaches: Crisis and Opportunity

Chapter 8. Supply Chain Risks

Google shocked the world in early 2010 when the seemingly invincible company announced that it had been hacked. “In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google,” wrote Chief Legal Officer David Drummond. “However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident—albeit a significant one—was something quite different.”

According to Drummond, Google wasn’t alone. “[A]t least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses—including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors—have been similarly targeted,” he wrote. ...