China says US hackers attacked 2.9 million computer mainframes

China has claimed to have 'mountains' of evidence linking the US to extensive cyber hacks on the nation, and said the US government should stop making hacking accusations against the Chinese when it is just as guilty.
Director of the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team Center of China (CNCERT), Huang Chengqing, reported having the data on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
He said CNCERT data links 4,062 US-based computer servers to an attack that successfully hijacked 2.91 million mainframe computers in China. Despite the severity of the attack Chengqing said it would be irresponsible to jump to the conclusion the US government was behind the attack.
"We have mountains of data if we wanted to accuse the US, but it's not helpful in solving the problem. They advocated cases that they never let us know about. Some cases could be addressed if they had talked to us, why not let us know?" he said.
The exact details of the attack reported by Huang remain vague and it is unclear which industries or individuals were targeted. At the time of publishing CNCERT had not responded to V3's request for comment on the attack.
Huang's comments come just before a scheduled meeting between president Barack Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping. The two leaders are scheduled to meet in California on Thursday and Friday, and cyber security is expected to be a key topic on the agenda.
The two countries have been engaged in an ongoing war of words for several years now, with the US accusing the Chinese government of mounting attacks on its networks. Tensions between the two nations reached new heights earlier this year when security firm Mandiant published evidence linking an advanced persistent threat (APT) cyber campaign to a Chinese military unit.