China refutes cyber-attack accusation

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-23 20:28

BEIJING -- China on Thursday said that it was irresponsible to allege on that cyber-attacks originated in China without thorough investigation.

"We have reiterated many times our policies of firmly opposing and severely cracking down on all crimes that damage the Internet, including hacking," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular press conference.

Jiang's remarks came in response to a question saying that the US government planned to create a new military command focusing on Pentagon computer networks and offensive capabilities in cyber warfare. The plan was reported to protect its networks from attacks by hackers.

According to some media reports, the attacks seemed to have originated in China, although it was difficult to determine the origin because of the ease of hiding identities online.

"It is rather irresponsible to easily affirm or allege, even without thorough investigation, that cyber-attacks originated in China," Jiang said.

The number of Chinese netizens hit nearly 300 million by the end of last year, the largest scale in the world, said Jiang.

However, China's information network also faces threat of cyber attacks, Jiang said. Statistics shows that 8 out of 10 computers in China with access to Internet have been attached by hackers, and 70 percent of botnets all over the world is in China.

Chinese government has always attached great importance to the security of the computer network. The Ministry of Public Security strengthened international cooperation to crack down on cross-border cyber crimes, as well as enhance its crackdown through consultation and collaboration with the International Criminal Police Organization, Jiang said.