Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says that Google's allegations of Chinese hacking of its email system are "very serious" and will be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Clinton told reporters on Thursday that the Obama administration was disturbed by the charges, which the Internet company says include breaches of email accounts belonging to senior U.S. officials.
Google said Wednesday that personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, had been exposed. Google traced the origin of the attacks to the home city of a military vocational school in China whose computers were linked to an assault 17 months ago on Google's systems.
China, meanwhile, today denied it supports hacking activities and said it is part of global efforts to combat computer security threats.
China is firmly opposed to activities that sabotage Internet and computer security, including hacking, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.
Hong said hacking was a global problem and Chinese networks had also been targeted by hackers, but he gave no specifics. He said China was working to crack down on the problem, but he didn't respond when asked whether it would investigate this specific incident.
"Allegations that the Chinese government supports hacking activities are completely unfounded and made with ulterior motives," Hong said.