China rejects cyber-spook charges

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 31 Mar 2009 at 13:49

China has rejected reports it's running a massive cyber-espionage network, claiming the authors are possessed of "the ghost of the Cold War."

The Chinese government was responding to a report from the Munk Center for International Studies in Toronto which claimed at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries had been breached by a network, dubbed Ghost Net.

The report tracked the network back to Hainan, where the Chinese government operates a signals intelligence centre.

"Nowadays the problem is that there are some people abroad avidly concocting rumours about China's so-called internet espionage," says spokesman Qin Gang, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry.

"There's a ghost abroad called the Cold War and a virus called the China threat. People possessed by the ghost of the Cold War constantly issue this China threat virus. The attempts of these people to use rumours to vilify China will never succeed."

Among the sites infiltrated were embassies, foreign ministries and government offices, including the Dalai Lama's Tibetan exile centres, the report claims, though it offered no proof of Chinese involvement.