Chinese hackers said to have accessed law enforcement targets

In January 2010, Google shocked the cyber world by confessing it had been the target of an advanced persistent threat lasting months and mounted by hackers connected to China's People Liberation Army.

"[We] have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists," Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote in blog post at the time.

Now, more that three years after that posting on what came to be known as Operation Aurora, it appears that the cyber marauders were after more than just information on activists. They were also after information on investigations on Chinese spies in the United States being conducted by the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice.