China spreads cyber attacks

UK government computer systems are the latest to come under attack from Chinese hackers, according to reports in the Guardian newspaper.

The Foreign Office is the only department to be named but the attacks are believed to have targeted a number of key institutions.

The Chinese government yesterday denied reports that its military, the People's Liberation Army, were responsible for the Pentagon attacks earlier in the year.

Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said at a regular news briefing yesterday the accusations against China were wrong.

'The criticism is unfounded, which represents cold war thinking,' she said.
It is unknown whether the Whitehall and German government attacks are also thought to come from the Chinese military.

And last week German chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue of hacking attacks on an official visit to China, following reports in Der Spiegel last month that Chinese spyware was widely present on German government systems.

Earlier this year a series of attacks that brought Estonia's government network to its knees were found to have originated from inside Russia.

The UK government refused to comment on the security issue.