Cyber attacks on Google came from Chinese schools

By Nick Allen, in Los Angeles Published: 11:01AM GMT 19 Feb 2010

The Chinese government has firmly denied any involvement in the cyber attacks which led to Google threatening to pull the plug on its Chinese search engine Photo: REUTERS

The attacks began as early as April, months earlier than previously thought, the New York Times reported, citing sources involved in the investigation.

The educational establishments allegedly involved were Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, the paper said.

Al-Qaeda planning cyber war against Britain, warns Lord West China denies claims it hacked into Pentagon computers Apple and Google: the best of frenemies China moves to censor home computers Inside China schedule: who, what, where, when

Jiaotong University has a leading computer science department and recently won an international competition organised by IBM.

Lanxiang Vocational School is in Shandong Province and some of its computer science students have gone on to work for the Chinese military, the newspaper said.

Spokesmen for the Chinese schools told the New York Times they were not aware that the Google attacks had been traced to their campuses.

The Chinese government has firmly denied any involvement in the cyber attacks which led to Google threatening to pull the plug on its Chinese search engine.

Google has said the attacks on its servers were "highly sophisticated" and attempted to target Gmail accounts of human rights activists.