Google Session at Cloud Expo

Forensic specialists have traced the now-famous hack into Google and 30 other companies to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University, one of China's top schools, with ties to Western firms such as Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and IBM, and the rather more obscure Lanxiang Vocational School, which has close ties with the Chinese military and perhaps the world's largest computer lab.

The New York Times says the evidence collected so far suggests the attacks started last April.

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The schools are indignant that they are suspected and at this point no one is absolutely certain that they aren't intermediate sites, but suspicions are that the attacks originated there. The Wall Street Journal said the trail is hard to follow because some of the computers used in the attack are no longer active.

The Financial Times says the author of the telltale code used in the attack has been identified as a 30something security freelancer who is not directly responsible for the hacks. He posted parts of his code on a hacker forum. It took advantage of a security hole in Internet Explorer.

The university is home to the Internet-specializing School of Information Security Engineering, whose dean and chief professor have worked on technical issues for the People's Liberation Army. Jiaotong is reportedly working on how to censor the Internet.

Meanwhile, the Journal quotes security house NetWitness as saying that systems at nearly 2,500 companies and government agencies such as Merck, Cardinal Health, Paramount Pictures and Juniper Networks have been broken into over the last 18 months by hackers operating a command center in Germany and using computers in China.

It is unclear how much data and IP has been stolen.

This Firefox-borne ZeuS hack, which resembles the Google attack, turns systems into zombie armies.

NetWitness claims some 75,000 computers in 196 countries were infiltrated, particularly in Egypt, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the U.S.