China's Defense Ministry attacks hacking report

[February 20, 2013]  BEIJING (AP) -- China's military says a study accusing it of sponsoring massive hacking attacks on U.S. targets is deeply flawed.

A statement from the Defense Ministry on Wednesday said the conclusions of the report by Virginia-based Mandiant were wrong because the addresses linking the attacks to a military facility in Shanghai could have been hijacked.

It also said there was no agreed definition of Internet attacks and accused the company of portraying routine Internet data collection activity as spying, adding that Internet attacks are transnational, anonymous, and deceptive and that the data about them is inherently unreliable.

The statement also said China was a hacking victim and works with other countries to investigate Internet crime. It says ''one-sided attacks in the media" destroy the atmosphere for cooperation.

[Associated Press]

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