China has denied hacking into the Google e-mail accounts of hundreds of users of the company's Gmail service.
The company alleged on Wednesday that a hacking campaign against Gmail had originated in the city of Jinan.
"Google detected and has disrupted this campaign to take users' passwords and monitor their emails," said a company statement. "We have notified victims and secured their accounts. In addition, we have notified relevant government authorities."
Google did not say it believed the hacking was conducted by the Chinese government, only saying "we can't say for sure who is responsible".
However, China was quick to move to deny any association with the attack. Hong Lei from China's foreign ministry told reporters at a news conference: "Hacking attacks are an international issue. China is also a victim. The so-called statement that the Chinese government supports hacking attacks is a total fabrication out of nothing."
Victims of the alleged China Google hacking include senior US and Korean government officials, military personnel and Chinese political activists.
The attack was a ‘spear phishing' scam, where e-mail users are tricked into divulging their login details to a fake web page operated by hackers representing the Gmail service. By gaining the username and password details the hackers can then forward incoming e-mail to another account.
the incident is the latest in a long-running spat between Google and China. Chinese authorities removed Google's license for mainland search operations in China following Google's announcement in January 2010 to stop censoring its China-based search engine, in accordance with Chinese wishes.
Google's announcement followed attacks on system that it said originated at a vocational school in Jinan, the same city where Google says the latest attacks have originated.
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