Chinese military suspected of hacking into Pentagon’s computer network

CHINA’S military successfully hacked into the Pentagon’s computer network, it was reported yesterday, although the Chinese government dismissed the accusation as groundless.

The Chinese military’s cyber-attack was carried out in June following months of efforts, the London-based Financial Times said, citing unnamed current and former US officials.

While the Pentagon declined to say who was behind the hacking, which led to the shutdown of a computer system serving the office of Defence Secretary Robert Gates, officials told the paper it was China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

“The PLA has demonstrated the ability to conduct attacks that disable our system,” the paper quoted a former US official as saying.

One senior US official reportedly said the Pentagon had pinpointed the exact origin of the attack.

The paper quoted another person familiar with the event as saying there was a “very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty” that the PLA was responsible.

While denying the accusations, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu countered there were some in the US who were seeking to damage improving Sino-US military relations.

“Against the background of good momentum towards the improvement of Sino-US military ties, some people are making groundless accusations that the Chinese military is attacking the networks of the US defence department,” said Jiang told journalists when asked about the report.

“This is not only groundless but a demonstration of a Cold War mentality.”

A spokesman for the Chinese defence ministry declined to comment on the report yesterday.

The Financial Times report said the Pentagon was still investigating how much information was stolen, but cited an unnamed person as saying that most of it was probably unclassified.