China slams US over cyber security issue

Iran Press TV

Fri Jun 28, 2013 7:0AM GMT

China has censured the United States for its double standards in the area of cyber security, amid revelations about the US cyber espionage against Chinese companies and institutions.

China’s Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Yang Yujun said on Thursday that the Prism program - an electronic surveillance program run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to mine Internet information - “has revealed the concerned country’s true face and hypocritical behavior,” apparently referring to the United States.

The remarks came amid revelations recently made by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the US monitoring of Chinese Internet sites and installations.

In his revelation published by the South China Morning Post on June 22, Snowden said US spying agencies have been hacking Chinese phone companies in order to access millions of private text messages in China.

According to the report, the NSA has also used Prism to hack China’s high-ranking Tsinghua University and Pacnet headquarters in Hong Kong, which operates one of the largest fiber-optic networks in the Asia-Pacific region.

“To, on the one hand, abuse one’s advantages in information technology for selfish ends, while on the other hand, making baseless accusations against other countries, shows double standards that will be of no help for peace and security in cyberspace,” Yang told reporters.

The Chinese official further said the Prism-gate affair has once again reminded China that it must “attach even more importance to Internet and information security protection, and resolutely protect Internet security and national security.”

The leaks on the US spying program have exposed Boundless Informant, which is a powerful tool developed by the NSA, enabling it to record and categorize intelligence it secretly collects from countries around the world.

MR/HSN