China yesterday described as "groundless" and a product of "Cold War mentality" reports claiming hackers, on the instructions of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), had broken into a Pentagon network.

The Financial Times, citing unidentified former and serving US officials, said yesterday that PLA hackers had broken into a US Defense Department network in June to steal data, forcing the shutdown of a system serving department secretary Robert Gates.

"The Chinese government has consistently opposed and vigorously attacked all Internet crimes, including hacking," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing in Beijing yesterday.


China itself is a victim of online attacks, she said.

A Symantec Internet Security Threat Report released in March found that the US is the source of about 31 percent of all malicious computer activities, more than four times that of China (7 percent) and Germany (7 percent).

And 51 percent of the servers used for buying or selling stolen personal information were in the US, the report said.

Experts have said that hackers in other countries could use insecure computers and networks in China to disguise their locations and launch attacks.