China dismisses Western hacking claims as ‘unreasonable’ following Microsoft breach, hits back at eavesdropping Washington

 

20 Jul, 2021 09:22

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(FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has hit out at the US and its allies, claiming their evidence that a spree of worldwide cyberattacks came from China is inconclusive, and slamming Washington for snooping on its partners.

Speaking on Tuesday during a daily press conference, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that Beijing would not accept the Western accusation that worldwide hacks, linked to an earlier breach of Microsoft, had anything to do with China. 

China will never accept it. China firmly opposes and cracks down on cyberattacks of any kind, let alone encourages, supports or condones hacker attacks. This position is consistent and clear.

The spokesman claimed that attacks in cyberspace are incredibly hard to trace and that there must be complete evidence before one country makes incriminating accusations against another government.

“The so-called technical details released by the US cannot constitute a complete chain of evidence,” he stated, adding that the US is in fact the largest global source of cyberattacks. 

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Zhao claimed that the US is a threat not only to China and its allies, but to the Western countries it calls partners. Citing reports from earlier this year, the spokesman highlighted how the US supposedly downplayed its use of Danish intelligence agencies to monitor their European leaders but blasts China on false charges.

On Monday, the UK, US, Canada, and the EU accused China and its Ministry of State Security of hosting a global cyber hacking campaign linked with an earlier attack on Microsoft. “The cyberattack on Microsoft Exchange Server by Chinese state-backed groups was a reckless but familiar pattern of behavior,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. 

Microsoft announced that a cyber breach had compromised tens of thousands of computers worldwide in March. The tech giant blamed “a group assessed to be state-sponsored and operating out of China.”

On Monday, Norway also blamed China for a March attack on its parliament e-mail system. Oslo called on Beijing to do more to prevent such attacks happening again.