China says US hacked nearly 2200 of its computer systems in 2 months

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:6AM GMT

Chinese officials have identified the US as the source of over half of all the cyber attacks targeting the nation’s computer systems in the first two months of 2013 amid rising tensions between the two rivals over cyber intrusions.

China's National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center (CNCERT), the country’s top Internet security agency, described foreign-based hacking attempts against Chinese computer networks as “increasingly serious” on Sunday, Xinhua reported.

It further reiterated that over half of the attacks originated from the United States, which often accuses China for mounting destructive cyber attacks against its governmental and industrial network systems.

According to the report, during the first two months of this year 2,196 US-based control servers "controlled" 1.29 million host computers in China, making it "the top-ranking country," waging cyber intrusions into servers and host computers in China.

Washington and Beijing have been exchanging allegations of sponsoring major cyber attacks for past months, with each accusing the other of hacking into sensitive governmental and industrial websites.

"A large amount of facts have proven that for many years, China has been one of the primary victims of cyber attacks," an unnamed official from China’s National Internet Information Office is cited as saying in the report.

Moreover, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced in February that two of its major military websites were targeted by nearly 144,000 hacking attacks per month in the previous year, some two-thirds of which originated from the United States.

Meanwhile, a US-based computer security company alleged in a February report that a secretive Chinese military unit was behind a series of sophisticated hacking attacks, mainly targeting key US government agencies as well as major industrial and commercial sites.

This while Chinese authorities have strongly denied the allegations, insisting that the country remains a major victim of global hacking attempts.

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