Andy Greenberg of Forbes writes an interesting article discussing the defense industry's "hemorrhaging of intellectual property to cyberspies". Unfortunately, the Forbes article references the recent attack on Google but then refers to it as a "breach by hackers".
These attacks are not a 'breach by hackers'. To claim it as such minimizes the threat and diverts attention away from the vector. In the case of the attacks on Google, the vector was malware sent via a malicious socially engineered email link. In other words, someone at Google was scammed, they fell for the trick and clicked the link, which subsequently infected the Google enterprise. The malware was then used to steal sensitive intellectual property.
And Google is not alone. Similar attacks have been carried out against the oil industry and sensitive industry verticals across the globe. Just last week, security researchers at NetWitness revealed the discovery of a cache of stolen data from 2500 companies, all of which were under the control of the Zeus botnet. Reported victim companies included Paramount Pictures, Juniper Networks, and Merck.
None of these companies were 'breached by hackers'. They were attacked by malware.