Operation Aurora was a series of cyber attacks performed by advanced persistent threats such as the Elderwood Group based in Beijing, China, with associations with the People's Liberation Army. First disclosed publicly by Google on January 12, 2010, by a weblog post, the attacks began in mid-2009 and continued through December 2009.

An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a stealthy threat actor, typically a state or state-sponsored group, which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period. In recent times, the term may also refer to non-state-sponsored groups conducting large-scale targeted intrusions for specific goals.