China says it's willing to prosecute Google hackers

Posted on 8 Mar 2010 at 16:31

According to Reuters, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has announced that Google never filed a complaint in response to the attempted hacking of several Google Mail accounts, said to originate in China. Vice Minister Miao Wei was further quoted as saying that Google has so far not made any moves to cease business in China.

"If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law," Miao said. "We never support hacking attacks because China also falls victim to hacking attacks," he said.

The Chinese government and the internet giant have been at an impasse since Google's statement in January that its corporate infrastructure had been subjected to "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack" originating in China.

The attack, which focussed on an accessing the Google Mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, led to Google threatening to close its Chinese operation and saying that it would no longer censor search results on google.cn in accordance with Chinese law.

Although Google stopped short of accusing the Chinese government of being behind the attacks, internet speculation has been rife, particularly since the news emerged last month that the Internet Explorer vulnerability that was exploited was discovered by a Chinese "freelance security consultant". A US analyst quoted by the Financial Times claimed that the Chinese government had "privileged access to these researchers' work".

The Chinese government has continued to maintain that Google's claim that the hacking attacks had originated in China were "groundless".

Author: Kat Orphanides

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