Chinese officials this week dismissed the idea that the country was behind the recently uncovered "Shady RAT" cyber attacks, labeling the suggestion "irresponsible."
The state-run People's Daily said accusations of China spearheading the massive hack "[do] not hold water."
"It is irresponsible to link China to Internet hackers," officials said.
Earlier this week, security firm McAfee released a report that detailed a hacking campaign dating back to 2006 that targeted multiple U.S. government agencies, the United Nations, foreign governments, and many technology companies and defense contractors. McAfee said the effort took down 72 targets, making it perhaps the largest concerted hacking attempt in history. What's more, McAfee suggested that "thousands" more could've been affected. The White House this week declined to name the U.S. agencies involved.
McAfee also declined to identify the source of the attack, saying only that it was likely a single-nation state given the attacks on several Olympic committees, including the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency in Canada. Reports then pointed the finger at China.
"China has been accused by the United States, Canada and other nations of spearheading online attacks on government agencies as well as companies, although the Beijing government has always denied this," People's Daily wrote.
McAfee rival Symantec, meanwhile, posted its own analysis of "Shady RAT," which examined its origins.
"There has been some discussion of this being a government-sponsored attack. However, the finger can’t be pointed at any particular government. Not only are the victims located in various places around the globe, so too are the servers involved in these attacks," Symantec's Hon Lau wrote in a blog post.
Symantec suggested that while "Shady RAT" is significant, "it is one of many similar attacks taking place daily."
"Is the attack described in Operation Shady RAT a truly advanced persistent threat? I would contend that it isn’t, especially when you consider the errors made in configuring the servers and the relatively non-sophisticated malware and techniques used in this case," Lau wrote. "Sure the people behind it are persistent but no more so than the myriad of other malware groups out there such as Zeus, Tidserv, and others like them."