China dismisses Germany’s accusations over cyberattack as ‘targeted defamation’

Chinese officials on Thursday responded to accusations from Germany that it was behind an attack on the country’s state cartography agency, calling them “unfounded.”

China's embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it “vehemently rejects” the allegations and called on Germany “to stop the practice of using cybersecurity issues to smear China politically and in the media.”

“Applying the tactic of targeted defamation against certain countries… would have a huge impact on the international community's joint efforts to combat cybersecurity threats,” the statement adds.

On Wednesday, German authorities accused China of hacking the country’s Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) in 2021, and summoned the Chinese ambassador to Berlin over the matter for the first time in decades. The goal of the attack, according to German security services, was espionage.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said earlier this week that the cyberattack on the country’s cartography agency “shows how great the danger is from Chinese cyberattacks and espionage.”

“We call on China to refrain from and stop such cyberattacks. These cyberattacks threaten the digital sovereignty of Germany and Europe,” she added.

China has repeatedly denied any accusations of cyberattacks or disinformation campaigns from other Western countries.

Earlier in March, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian dismissed accusations from the U.S. and the U.K. of China’s “state-sponsored” cyberattacks, adding that Beijing “firmly opposes and combats all kinds of cyberattacks and is committed to working with all countries… to strengthen cooperation and jointly deal with the threats of cybersecurity.”

The U.K. government had earlier accused a Chinese state-backed hacker group named APT31 of breaching the servers of the Electoral Commission and gaining access to the personal information of nearly 40 million people.

Following a U.S. investigation into China’s state-sponsored threat actor Volt Typhoon, which allegedly targeted critical infrastructure in the West, Beijing said that “Volt Typhoon was an invention of Western intelligence agencies.”