14 DAY TRIAL // The National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC) claims it registered nearly 500,000 cyber attacks last year, half of which originated from abroad.
China's state news agency Xinhua quotes Zhou Yonglin, head of the CNCERT/CC's operation and management department, who explains that most of the attacks involved information stealing trojans.
According to Zhou, 14.7% of these attacks originated from IP addresses located in the United States and 8% from IPs in India.
However, he does stress that this is not evidence that the attackers were actually located in those countries.
"We cannot say for certain that the hackers were located abroad simply because their Internet Protocol addresses (IPs) were located in other countries," Zhou said.
"Likewise, we cannot say that 'Chinese' hackers are actually in China simply because their IPs are located in China," he added.
CNCERT/CC detected attacks against 10% of the country's governmental websites in 2010, which is a 67% increase over the previous year. The center calls for increased international cooperation in cyber security matters.
CNCERT's report comes a week after antivirus giant McAfee exposed a major cyber espionage operation which involved the stealing of intellectual property from over 70 large companies and organizations around the world.
Even though McAfee didn't give any names and only stated that it was most likely the work of a nation state, people immediately blamed China. The country has repeatedly been accused of using hackers to spy on foreign governments.
The Beijing government constantly denies these accusations and claims that China is a victim as anyone else. Earlier this year the People's Liberation Army (PLA) officially announced a cyber defense program which involves the creation of a special cyber warfare unit.