Chinese paper denies Beijing’s hand in cyber attacks

Though the Chinese government has not reacted officially to these suggestions that China may be behind the attacks on at least 72 organizations in the last five years, the People’s Daily said that “linking China with Internet hackers is irresponsible.”

People’s Daily says allegations “irresponsible”
In fact, as hackers’ attacks against internationally renowned companies or international organizations have increased this year, some Western media have repeatedly described China as “the black hand behind the scenes,” wrote the newspaper.

Chinese newspaper People’s Daily highlighted reports that the U.S. government hires hackers and also sends its officers from the defense, homeland security, NASA, and the NSA to the hackers’ conference.

The newspaper seemed to imply that it is the U.S. government which is a more likely suspect. The newspaper pointed out towards reports that the U.S. government hires hackers and also sends its officers from the defense, homeland security, NASA, and the NSA to the hackers’ conference.

McAfee report disclosed widespread hacking
Internet security firm McAfee Inc. reported on Wednesday that some of the most sensitive networks of the world were compromised. The 72 organizations that were targeted in the last five years included the governments of the United States, Canada, and India.

International organizations like the United Nations and the International Olympic Association were also hacked. Most of the private companies that were hacked belonged to the United States.

McAfee vice president, threat research, Dmitri Alperovitch, said the recent much-publicized attacks on organizations like the Citigroup, Sony Corp, Lockheed Martin, and others were mostly “exploits for the sake of notoriety.” But the threats that McAfee had pointed out in its report are “much more insidious and occur largely without public disclosures.”

He said the persons behind these attacks had “a massive hunger for secrets and intellectual property.”

McAfee had not named anybody as the suspect behind these attacks and had merely said that a state actor was involved in large-scale spying operations through the internet.

Some experts were quick to point out a finger towards China, a claim that has been refuted by the People’s Daily. “McAfee’s new report alleges that ‘a government’ carried out a large scale Internet espionage hacking action but its analysis of the justification is obviously groundless,” said the daily.

The McAfee report closely follows the claim of the South Korean officials last week that hacking attacks that stole the information of about 35 million users had allegedly originated in China.