China accused a US intelligence agency of hacking a government-funded university with aeronautics and space research programs, ramping up a dispute between the world’s two largest economies over cybersnooping.
The US National Security Agency’s (NSA) Office of Tailored Access Operations carried out the attacks on Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xian, the Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center said in a statement.
A team from the center and 360 Security Technology Inc analyzed the university’s information systems after an attack from overseas was reported in June, the statement said.
The NSA conducted more than 10,000 “vicious” cyberattacks on Chinese targets in recent years, stealing more than 140 gigabytes of data that were of “great value,” the team said.
Police in Xian said in a statement in June that the university reported it had detected phishing e-mails that posed a “serious security threat” to critical databases.
Beijing and Washington have been engaged in an increasingly testy war of words over cyberspying, with China becoming more direct in its accusations.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray told Western companies in July that China aims to “ransack” their intellectual property so that 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 is 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 cyberattacks and naming targets.
In February, Chinese cybersecurity firm Pangu Lab said it discovered US-sponsored hacking activity in China: malware in domestic IT systems that it said 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.
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