US to Investigate Google’s Allegations on Chinese Hacking

Washington is looking to investigate claims made by Internet giant Google that Chinese hackers broke into email accounts belonging to senior U.S. officials, journalists, and rights activists.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that the U.S. is quite concerned over Google’s claim.

"We are obviously very concerned about Google’s announcement regarding a campaign that the company believes originated in China to collect the passwords of Google email account holders," Clinton said.

"Google informed the State Department of this situation yesterday in advance of its public announcement. These allegations are very serious. We take them seriously, we’re looking into them."

Google said on Wednesday in a blog posting that Chinese hackers based in Jinan Province hacked into Gmail accounts using "spear phishing” methods. They were able to steal information like account names and passwords. Google said that they dealt with the problem and the accounts have been secured.

Clinton said that incidents such as these is the reason why the administration came up with its first-ever cyber-security coordinator position.

“We know this is going to be a continuing problem and therefore we want to be as prepared as possible to deal with these matters when they do come to our attention,” she said.

The Department of Defense told AP that it received little-to-no information regarding the incident since the attack involved personal email rather than government email accounts.

Clinton said the FBI will be conducting the investigation.