Investigators looking into web attacks on Google and dozens of other American companies last year have traced the intrusions to computers at Jiaotong University as well as Lanxiang Vocational School in Shandong Province, an institution with ties to the Chinese military, according to a report in the New York Times. Beijing has subsequently denied these claims as “groundless“, fighting back against reports that investigators are drawing closer to hackers in China. China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Qin Gang, told reporters: “Reports that these attacks came from Chinese schools are totally groundless and the accusation of Chinese government involvement is also irresponsible and driven by ulterior motives.”

However, US analysts now believe they have identified the Chinese author of the critical programming code used in the alleged state-sponsored hacking attacks, making it far harder for the Chinese government to deny involvement. A freelance security consultant in his 30s wrote the part of the program that used an unknown security hole in the Internet Explorer web browser to break into computers and insert the spyware, a researcher working for the US government told the Financial Times.