In mid-December, Google said in a blog posting yesterday, the company discovered "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit significant one--was something quite different."

First, Google said, it found out that the attack on it apparently was part of a coordinated attack against at least 20 other large companies, many of which seem to be US-based. According to the Washington Post, it was more like 34 companies.

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