Pentagon report says US computer hacking 'appears to be attributable' to Chinese government

In a new report the Pentagon states that it believes the Chinese government was behind some of the hacking attacks in the United States in 2012. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the information comes from a yearly document prepared for Congress entitled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2013." It states that numerous computer systems in the US — including those of the US government itself — were hit with attacks, and that some of them "appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military."

China has been blamed for a series of high-profile hacking attacks that came to light in recent months. 

Newspapers like The Washington Post , The New York Times, and the Journal itself were hit, with some of those attacks reportedly traced back to a People's Liberation Army base in Shanghai. One of the motives for hacking those newspapers was thought to be the ability to monitor international sentiment of China itself, something which is echoed in the Pentagon's report as well. The document states that China is utilizing cyber-espionage to help collect information that can be used against both the US economic and defense industries, but that the information collected could also be used to help gain a better understanding of what policymakers in the US think of China.

China's Ministry of Defense has steadfastly denied any role in the hacking attacks, and while the US has been looking at more aggressive tactics to deal with future problems they've mostly been couched in the context of dealing with hackers that happen to be within China's borders. However gentle the language may be, the statements made in the new report are much more clear: pinning some of the blame directly on China's government and military.

Theverge.com