US concerned China behind cyber-attack on US sites

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is voicing concern over a report that China manipulated international Internet traffic intended for a major Chinese Web service company and used it for a cyberattack on U.S. sites.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke’s comments Friday follow a recent report by anti-online censorship group Greatfire.org that Chinese authorities carried out denial-of-service attacks that intermittently shut down San Francisco-based Github, a U.S.-based web resource that hosts some of the group’s data.

U.S.-government subsidized Greatfire.org produces mirror websites that let Chinese users see information normally blocked by government censors.

It contends that Chinese authorities carried out the attacks by installing malicious code on the computers of users visiting the popular Chinese search engine Baidu and related sites and used those computers to overwhelm Github and Greatfire.org websites with service requests.

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