China denies attacking Canadian government computers
Posted Jul 30, 2014 06:43:29 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The federal government says Chinese hackers infiltrated computers at the National Research Council of Canada, but China’s embassy in Ottawa vehemently denying the attack.
The incident has led to the shut down of the NRC’s IT network.
The Treasury Board Secretariat says the intrusion came from a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor.
But a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Ottawa has issued a strong denial of what China terms a “groundless allegation.”
Yang Yundong says Chinese government has always been firmly opposed to and combated cyber attacks in accordance with the law.
Yundong says China is in fact a “major victim” of cyber attacks itself.
The federal government has not said when the NRC’s computers were hacked, or what materials might have been accessed but it has said that there’s no evidence other government computer systems have been compromised.
The NRC says it plans to update Canadians on the situation Thursday.
However, in a recording of an internal briefing obtained by CTV News, NRC president John McDougall said employee and client data may have been compromised.
He told employees in a conference call not to connect their memory sticks, smartphones or tablets to their work computers.
The incident has come to light at an awkward time, with Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird in Asia laying a path for a visit to China this fall by Prime Minister Harper.
A spokesman for Baird says the minister raised concerns over the breach with Chinese government officials.
