China accused a US intelligence agency of hacking a government-funded university with aeronautics and space research programmes, ramping up a dispute between the world’s two largest economies over cyber snooping.
The National Security Agency’s Office of Tailored Access Operations carried out the attacks on Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, according to China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center.
A team from the center and 360 Security Technology Inc analysed the university’s information systems after an attack from overseas was reported in June, the statement added. The NSA conducted more than 10,000 “vicious” cyberattacks on Chinese targets in recent years, stealing more than 140 gigabytes of data with “great value”, the team said.
Beijing and Washington have been engaged in an increasingly testy war of words over cyber spying, with China becoming more direct in its accusations. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray warned Western companies in July that China aims to “ransack” their intellectual property so it can eventually dominate key industries.
Neither the US embassy in Beijing nor the NSA immediately replied to requests for comment.
China has in the past typically responded to such criticisms by saying it’s a victim of hacking, calling the US an “empire of hackers” and pointing to Edward Snowden’s revelations about US espionage.
More recently, Beijing has shifted its strategy by directly accusing the US of cyber attacks and naming targets. In February, Chinese cybersecurity firm Pangu Lab said it discovered US-sponsored hacking activity in China: malware in domestic IT systems it claims was created by hacking group Equation, “generally believed” to be linked to the NSA.
The new approach aims to make the case directly to the Chinese people that the US is at fault in the dispute. State broadcaster China Central Television and other major state media outlets reported on the alleged hacks at Northwestern Polytechnical University, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and runs research programs in aeronautics, astronautics and marine technology engineering.
The Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper also tweeted about the report and put it on its Weibo social media account. The news was the top trending topic on Weibo on Monday, attracting 210 million views.
Police in Xi’an said in a statement in June that the university reported it had detected phishing emails that posed a “serious security threat” to critical databases. – Bloomberg