Attacks originating from US rank first among overseas hackings in China: FM

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-2-20 16:19:10

Attacks originating from the United States rank the first among overseas hackings in China , Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news conference Tuesday in response to the accusations of China launching cyberattacks on US in US cybersecurity firm Mandiant's report.

In 2012, about 73,000 overseas IP addresses controlled more than 14 million computers in China and 32,000 IP addresses remotely controlled 38,000 Chinese websites, Hong Lei said.

Also, the Chinese army is one of the top victims.

From January to March, the websites of China's Ministry of National Defense and China Military Online suffered 240,000 cyberattacks, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

"The Chinese army has never supported any hackings," the ministry said in a statement. Some U.S. accusations are unprofessional and false, it added.

China bans all cybersabotage activities, including hackings, and in fact always resolutely fights them, the ministry said.

China, like other countries, faces a severe threat of cyberattacks and is one of the major victims of cyberattacks, the ministry added.

Mandiant on Monday released a report which alleged that a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai was behind years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies.

China's military spokesman said Mandiant's report was groundless in fact because the report came into the conclusion that the source of attack came from China only with the discovery that attacks were linked to IP addresses based in China.

First, as known to all, it is a common sense and method on the Internet to conduct hacking attacks by peculating IP addresses, the spokesman said, "it happens almost everyday."

Second, there has been no clear and consistent definition on cyberattacks around the world. The report is lack of legal basis to assert cyber espionage only by collecting some routine cyber activities, Geng said.

Earlier, the People's Daily, an opinion leader in China, said that allegations from the U.S. serve as an excuse for Washington to expand its cybersecurity forces and levy more technology restrictions on China as a containing measure.

Meanwhile, Wen Weiping, a professor at the School of Software and Microelectronics at Peking University, said cybersabotage targeting China is rising rapidly, but Beijing has seldom accused other countries of launching the attacks.

International rules could regulate the hackings but cannot eradicate them and hacking accusations, said Cui Baojiang, an expert on information studies at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

To fundamentally address the problem, every country has to keep strengthening its own cyberdefense system, said Cui, adding that China's cyber security capacity has been improved but still heavily relies on imported technologies.



Posted in: Diplomacy

blog comments powered by Disqus