China denies involvement in Canada hack

Chinese officials have strongly denied any involvement in a cyber attack on the Canadian government after the source of the attack was traced to a server in China.

The attack, perpetrated in January, penetrated three government bodies in Canada. The Treasury Board and the Finance Department were both forced offline. A civilian R&D agency working for the Department of National Defence was also hacked.

The attack used so-called spear-phishing techniques – plausible emails addressed to specific addressees containing malware-infected documents.

The attack was traced to a server in China.

But Ma Zhaoxu of China's Foreign Ministry told reporters and diplomats at a press conference this week that "any allegation that China supports hacking is groundless".

He said the Chinese government is strongly opposed to criminal acts online and pointed out that China has also been a victim of hacking.

Security analysts have said it is impossible to determine whether the attack was carried out by China or the hackers routed the attack through Chinese servers to cover their tracks.