Chinese cyber criminals hack Canadian government websites

Canadian federal IT staff was tricked into granting access to hackers who may be based in China. Being allowed to government computers crooks tried to steal information but according to official statements no data has been compromised. The breach led to severe Internet restrictions at Treasury Board and the Finance Department, reports CBC News.

CBC says that the attack first surfaced in January and cut off Internet access for thousands of public servants, although service has slowly been returning to normal. In an "executive spear-phishing" attempt cyber criminals used fake email addresses to present themselves as senior executives to IT staff at the two federal departments and request passwords, while other staff received e-mails with virus-laden attachments.

After media reports Treasury Board made a brief statement admitting that it had detected an "unauthorized attempt to access its networks," but provided no more details. "Employee access to the Internet has been limited for the time being," said spokesman Jay Denny.

Sources told the CBC it is not certain that the cyber-attackers are Chinese. Servers based in China may simply have been used to route the attacks from elsewhere. Chinese officials immediately denied any connections to the attacks.

"The allegation that the Chinese government supports Internet hacking is groundless," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters during a regular briefing, according to the Hindustan Times. "The Chinese government attaches importance to the safety of computer networks and asks computer and Internet users to abide by laws and regulations."