China suspected in cyber attack on emails of top U.S. government, military officials

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Daily Caller:

Just days after the Pentagon concluded for the first time that computer sabotage counts as an act of war, top U.S. government and military officials’ Gmail accounts were hit by what Google says was an attack by Chinese hackers.

Google announced Wednesday that hundreds of its email accounts, including those of many U.S. and South Korean officials, were targeted by a complex phishing scheme. The attack followed a recent announcement by Lockheed Martin that its computer security had also been compromised.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that the attacks will be investigated by the FBI. The White House said no official U.S. government email accounts were accessed.

In an appearance on Fox News Thursday, Florida Republican Rep. Allen West, who retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel, accused China of launching similar attacks against American personnel in Afghanistan when he was a civilian advisor to the U.S. military in the country.

“We have known for quite some time that we have been undergoing cyber attacks from China, as well within the two and a half years that I spent over in Afghanistan, we were experiencing the exact same type of cyber attacks against our communication systems and our information technology systems from China there,” West said.

Although China always strenuously denies any involvement in cyber attacks originating from within its borders, as it did with the recent attacks, security experts have long accused it of complicity.

“The denials Chinese officials make are just not credible,” said Dan Blumenthal, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on U.S. national security and foreign policy. “China has a very aggressive cyber-espionage strategy that it uses constantly.”