The Washington Post reports that the aim of the extensive hacker attacks on Google in late 2009 was to spy on US counterintelligence information.

Access was gained to a database that contained info about Google Gmail accounts that had surveillance orders on them.

These included classified ones from a US Federal court that approves surveillance on foreign targets such as: spies, diplomats and suspected terrorists. This may have been used to warn Chinese agents who might be under surveillance allowing them to destroy info and get people out of the country.

Most of the attacks in early 2010 involved the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It still remains unclear how much info was obtained. A high-ranking Microsoft executive said that the attackers had also searched their servers for info on account that had surveillance orders on them.

Both Google and the FBI reportedly declined to comment on the newspaper article. In 2010, China denied any involvement in the hacker attacks. Instead, the country said that China itself had been the victim of the most extensive hacker attacks.