Did China hack the Pentagon?

Did the Chinese succeed in hacking the Pentagon? This is the big question hovering around the tech world today following a report in the Financial Times quoting "senior US officials" as saying the Chinese military was behind an extensive hack attack in June on the Department of Defence computer network. It's fairly clear the attack was not the work of script kiddies or gangster fraudsters. The attackers succeeded in disabling part of the network that serves the office of Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary. At the time, Mr Gates downplayed the attack, saying the Pentagon gets attacked all the time. He also revealed he's not very tech savvy, not a comforting revelation for defence hawks.

Officially, the Pentagon has never said whom it believes was behind the hack attack. Citing officials "familiar with the event", the FT points the finger at the People's Liberation Army.

State-sponsored cyber snooping/hacking has long been a suspected piece in any nation's military and intelligence gathering arsenal. The Register recently pointed out that the US Military issued an alarmist report on China earlier this year saying it was beefing up its information warfare arsenal to make the most of computer network attacks. But the June attack raised the stakes, showing that a fortified network like the Pentagon's is still susceptible to spies and hackers.