Earlier this week, Google revealed that it was the target of a highly sophisticated cyber-attack originating from China. Now, India has joined the ever expanding list of affected parties.

M. K. Narayanan – India’s National Security Adviser (NSA), has alleged that his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15. The attackers attempted to infiltrate by deploying PDF files infected with a Trojan. It is not known if it’s the same Trojan (Hydraq), which is believed to have been used in the Google Hack Attack. It is also not clear at the moment if this attack is indeed a part of Operation Aurora. However, circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the possibility. Google was also attacked in mid-December and Trojans were one of the vectors utilized by the hackers.

India’s NSA indicated that the Chinese government may be involved and said that, “People seem to be fairly sure it was the Chinese. It is difficult to find the exact source but this is the main suspicion. It seems well founded.” Although, Google didn’t directly blame the Chinese government, many experts suspected that an attack of this nature isn’t possible without government backing. The Chinese government has officially denied any role in the hacking attempts, with a foreign ministry spokeswoman stating that, “Hacking in whatever form is prohibited by law in China”.