The Chinese government says U.S. allegations that China is behind a massive cyberattack against the Office of Personnel Management are "counterproductive" and "irresponsible."

As we reported Thursday, the U.S. government said that a data breach in April may have exposed the personal information — names and Social Security numbers, birthdates — of nearly 4 million past and current federal employees.

Anonymous U.S. officials told several news outlets that authorities believed the attack originated in China, but they were still investigating whether it was state-sponsored. Sen. Susan Collins told the AP the same thing, but added that the breach was "yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances."

The Chinese government quickly responded to the allegations. Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported that the Chinese embassy in Washington warned of "jumping to conclusions."

"Cyber attacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify. Jumping to conclusions and making hypothetical accusation is not responsible and counterproductive," Zhu Haiquan said, according to Xinhua.

The AP reports that this morning Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was on the defensive, echoing what the embassy said Thursday.

"It's irresponsible and unscientific to make conjectural, trumped-up allegations without deep investigation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a briefing.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...-irresponsible

Originally posted by Chucko

The fact is they are probably right anyone could have gotten in to that agency they are still using Windows 98 and 20 year old security software.

Originally posted by Retro

It's actually rather common for foreign hackers to be found to belong to a particular country based on the different styles they use, though.