Russia and China’s ‘attack on Google’: Virtual wargame ‘experiment’ hits search giant

Google has been hit by the ‘worst ever’ internet hijack in the company’s history, security experts say.

Information from users’ Google searches, cloud-hosting services and the company’s bundle of collaboration tools for businesses – known as G Suite – were all affected.

Data belonging to users across the globe was intercepted by servers in Nigeria, China and Russia – including those run by major state-owned telecoms providers.

Security experts suggested the hack was a ‘wargame experiment’ – meaning it may prelude similar, more wide-scale attacks from the nations involved in future.

Google is downplaying Monday’s incident, saying it does not believe it was malicious, but has failed to allay fears that the personal data of millions of users may have been compromised.

The company is under increasing pressure to protect users after a string of high-profile data leaks, including last month’s breach of its Google+ social network, which exposed the private information of an estimated 500,000 people.

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