The United States has sought an investigation regarding alleged cyber attacks implicating China for a new wave of cyber attacks on U.S. websites.
The U.S. State Department said Chinese authorities should help investigate the findings made by a research unit of the University of Toronto that China could have found a new cyber capability to make use of Internet traffic hosted outside of China to launch attacks on U.S. company websites, according to the Associated Press.
The attack has been attributed to a so-called "Great Cannon," which, according to the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, has been tapped to manipulate the Internet traffic outside of China, quietly programming browsers to create a massive denial-of-service attack.
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters that this has been alarming, especially with the recent complaint aired by Greatfire.org, an anti-online censorship group that encountered denial-of-service attacks in March that consequently shut down Github, a U.S.-based computer-code sharing site that hosts Greatfire's data.
Greatfire said months prior that they encountered similar attacks. The organization, which advocates for Internet freedom, has caught the ire of China as it makes mirror websites that allow Chinese users to see information that are normally blocked by the Chinese government, the Associated Press reported.
The publication added that Greatfire, which has been focusing on China's firewall, apparently also received funding from the U.S. in 2014 pegged at $114,000.
"China firmly opposes and combats any form of cyber attack in accordance with law," China Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan said on Friday. "We hope that instead of making accusations without solid evidence, the U.S. side can take a more constructive attitude and work together with us to address cyber issues."
