Police in the northeastern city of Harbin said three alleged NSA agents to a wanted list and also accused the University of California and Virginia Tech of being involved in the attacks after carrying out investigations, according to a report by state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday.
It did not specify how the two American universities were involved.
China’s foreign ministry later confirmed the attacks and said Beijing had raised its concerns with the United States.
The detailed allegations come as the world’s two largest economies spiral deeper into a trade war that has already spurred travel warnings for Chinese tourists going to the U.S. and halted imports of U.S. films into China.
The attacks had “the intention of sabotaging China’s critical information infrastructure, causing social disorder, and stealing important confidential information,“ it added.
Xinhua said the NSA operations took place during the Winter Games and were “suspected of activating specific pre-installed backdoors” in Microsoft Windows operating systems on specific devices in Heilongjiang.
The NSA intended to use cyberattacks to steal the personal data of participating athletes, the news agency said, adding that the cyber attacks reached a peak from the first ice hockey game on February 3. The attacks targeted information systems such as the Asian Winter Games registration system and stored “sensitive information about the identities of relevant personnel of the event,“ Xinhua said.
Last month, Washington announced indictments against a slew of alleged Chinese hackers who targeted the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the foreign ministries of Taiwan, South Korea, India, and Indonesia.
After years of being accused by Western governments of cyberattacks and industrial espionage, in the past two years several Chinese organisations and government organs have accused the United States and its allies of similar behaviour.
In December, China said it found and dealt with two U.S. cyber attacks on Chinese tech firms to “steal trade secrets” since May 2023, but did not name the agency involved.
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