China accused of hacking into heart of Merkel administration

China has hacked into the computers of Angela Merkel’s Chancellery and three other German ministries in an extraordinary economic espionage operation that threatens to blight the German leader’s already delicate trip to Beijing this week.The claims, made in a detailed investigation by Der Spiegel magazine, were denied strenuously by the Chinese authorities yesterday, but there was no mistaking German anger. “If true, it is unacceptable,” Ralf Stegner, a senior Social Democrat, said. “China is a competitor as well as a trading partner. Mrs Merkel has to get to the bottom of the affair on her China trip.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2332130.eceAlso see:
China’s Premier ‘Gravely Concerned’ by Hack on Germany
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao is “gravely concerned” by allegations that hackers in his country have attacked German government systems, according to a report from the two countries’ diplomatic meeting earlier today.
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=132479German gov’t PCs hacked; China offers to investigate [IDG]
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao described reports of Chinese hackers breaking into German computers as a matter of “grave concern” and said today that his country will cooperate with Germany to resolve the matter.Wen’s comments, made during a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing, were prompted by a report published two days earlier in the German news magazine Der Spiegel claiming that Chinese hackers had been able to infect German government computers with spyware.
http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9032898
http://golem.de/0708/54346.html [German]
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/94980 [German]