China denies hacking claims made by Google

CHINA denied it supports hacking activities and said it is part of global efforts to combat computer security threats yesterday, a day after Google disclosed some of its email users suffered hacking attacks that orginated within the country.

Google disclosed on Wednesday that personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior US government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been breached.

Google traced the origin of the attacks to Jinan, China, the home city of a military vocational school whose computers were linked to an assault 17 months ago on Google’s systems.

China is firmly opposed to activities that sabotage Internet and computer security, including hacking, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters yesterday.

Hong said hacking was a global problem and Chinese networks had also been targeted by hackers, but he gave no specifics.

He said China was working to crack down on the problem, but he didn’t respond when asked whether it would investigate this specific incident.

“Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacking activities are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives,” Hong said.

US authorities were investigating Google’s disclosure, the coordinator for cyber issues at the US State Department said yesterday in London. Christopher Painter said the hacking illustrated a problem of attribution in cyberspace.

Google said all of the hacking victims have been notified and their accounts have been secured.

This time around the hackers appeared to rely on tactics commonly used to fool people into believing they are dealing with someone they know or a company that they trust. Once these “phishing” expeditions get the information needed to break into an email account, the access can be used to send messages that dupe other victims.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which has a hand in regulating the Internet, referred questions about the allegations to another regulatory agency, the State Council Information Office, which did not respond to the questions.

The latest attacks aren’t believed to be tied to the more sophisticated assault last year. That intrusion targeted Google’s own security systems.