World
China accuses US, allies of ‘disinformation campaign’ after hacking claim
China accused the United States and its allies of waging a “disinformation campaign” Thursday, after Washington, its Western partners and Microsoft said state-sponsored Chinese hackers had infiltrated critical US infrastructure networks.
“This is an extremely unprofessional report with a missing chain of evidence, this is just scissors-and-paste work,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
The allegations were “a collective disinformation campaign of the Five Eyes coalition countries”, she said.
In a report Wednesday, Microsoft highlighted Guam, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean with a vital military outpost, as one of the targets of the allegedly Chinese state-backed hackers.
But, it said, “malicious” activity had also been detected elsewhere in the United States.
The stealthy attack – carried out by a China-sponsored actor dubbed “Volt Typhoon” since mid-2021 – enabled long-term espionage and was likely aimed at hampering the United States in the event of a conflict, it said.
The claims were echoed by the United States and its allies in the Five Eyes security alliance – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – accusations Beijing denied on Thursday.
The United States, Mao said, “was expanding new channels for disseminating disinformation.”
“But no change in tactics can alter the fact that the US is a hacker empire,” she said.
Read more:
US, Microsoft warn China-sponsored cyber actor attacking ‘critical’ infrastructure
China-sponsored cyber entity targeting critical US infrastructure: NSA