China denies Pentagon hacking claims

‘Hacked by Chinese’ row rumbles on.

The Chinese government has vigorously denied accusations, made in a report in UK newspaper

The Financial Times

on Monday, that Chinese hackers were behind a security breach in US computer systems in the Pentagon.

The penetration, into an unclassified network used by the staff of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, took place in June, and resulted in the network being shut down and a series of security checks being run on Pentagon systems. Chinese government and army hackers have also been suspected of probing government networks in the UK and Germany in recent years.

Responding to the allegations, a Chinese government spokesperson called the claims ‘absurd’ and described them as ‘cold war thinking’, stressing that China had strict laws against hacking and cybercrime.

The original article in the

FT

is

here

, with a follow-up

here

. A transcript of a press conference in Australia today, where US President George W. Bush responded to the row, is carried by

Channel 4 News


here

.

Latest figures from

Sophos

find China to be hosting 44.8% of all malware spotted in August, with the US some way behind on just over 20%. Full details of its findings are

here

.

Posted on 05 September 2007 by

Virus Bulletin