Chinese hackers have reportedly discovered a way to bypass all widely used Internet security standards, breaching millions of user accounts.
According to a report by The New York Times, hackers were able to bypass the technologies used for the country's most stringent censorship, often referred to as the Great Firewall.
Technologies that can be bypassed include virtual private networks (VPNs), which are used to create and maintain encrypted connections to the internet, and the Tor network, a web browser that ensures users' anonymity by hiding their IP address.
This allows hackers to access the accounts of 15 of the country's top websites. These include search site Baidu, chat and email service QQ, and e-commerce site Taobao, which is owned by Alibaba.
It is unclear who these hackers are, but an expert told The New York Times that the complexity of the attacks makes it highly likely that they are the Chinese government.
The hackers were able to bypass all security measures. Instead of targeting the Tor network or the Tor browser, they managed to add malicious code to targeted websites. This code then infiltrates the user's browser.
This particular vulnerability was discovered two years ago, and websites will have to remove the malicious code manually, which they apparently haven't done yet.
However, representatives from Baidu and Alibaba, which owns Taobao, told The Times that they were working rapidly to understand and capture the breach.
