China denied Gmail hacking

Google said last Wednesday that it had discovered that a number of its Gmail account user names and passwords of personal accounts belonging to senior government officials, activists, and journalists, had been compromised. Google said that the usernames and passwords were obtained likely through phishing, a hack that uses social engineering to induce the victim to turn over the personal information without any penetration of the email system.

Google traced the origin of the attacks to Jinan, China, the home city of a military vocational school whose computers were linked to an assault 17 months ago on Google's systems.

Following Google's accusation, China denied it supports hacking activities and said it is part of global efforts to combat computer security threats Thursday, a day after Google disclosed some of its email users suffered hacking attacks that orginated within the country.