China firmly rejects US accusations about hacking

Beijing: China firmly opposes the US government and some cyber security companies spreading disinformation about “Chinese hacking,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday following a report claiming that hackers suspected of being linked to the Chinese government launched cyber espionage against India’s power sector.

Based on some footage in media interviews, an Indian official talked about the importance of measures to strengthen cybersecurity, but did not associate recent cyber activities with China and said they could originate from any country, spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in Friday’s press briefing.

Zhao made the remarks in response to a question from Recorded Future, a US-based cybersecurity consultancy, which claimed that hackers suspected of being linked to the Chinese government launched cyber espionage against India’s power sector near Ladakh in recent months.

The company claimed that it has passed on the information to the Indian government, and Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy Shri R. K. Singh confirmed cyber attacks on India.

China believes that cybersecurity is a common challenge facing all countries and should be addressed through dialogue and cooperation, Zhao noted.

For some time, in the name of enhancing capacity building, the US has been seeking military cooperation with China’s neighbors in the field of cyberspace to pursue “Forward Deployment” in China’s neighborhood, according to Zhao.

Chinese cyber security companies released a series of reports recently, revealing that the US government launched cyber attacks on many countries in the world including China, seriously jeopardizing the security of critical infrastructure in these countries, according to Zhao.

The Global Times has learnt that an elite hacking group under the US National Security Agency (NSA) was found to have been creating an advanced and covert backdoor which has been used to monitor 45 countries and regions for over a decade.

Chinese cybersecurity experts for the first time disclosed a weapon used by the NSA to target China that can monitor and hijack users’ social media accounts, emails and other information, the Global Times has learnt.

It is worth noting that many US allies or countries it cooperates with on cyber security are also victims of US cyber attacks, the spokesperson said. “We believe that the international community, especially China’s neighboring countries, will keep their eyes wide open and make their own judgment on the true intentions of the US side,” Zhao said.