Chinese hackers access Google accounts of senior US officials

Hackers in China obtained access to the personal Google email accounts of senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials from several Asian countries, journalists, military personnel and hundreds of others, Google said Wednesday in a blog post.

The Internet company said it was able to disrupt the attack on its email service, Gmail, but not before the hackers were able to monitor the accounts.

Google did not disclose in the post what information might have been exposed, and it declined to comment beyond the blog post, informs Los Angeles Times.

It's not the first time Google believes it has been targeted by hackers based in China. In March, the company claimed that the Chinese government had hacked its Gmail service in an attempt to quell social unrest in the country, and in December last year cables released by Wikileaks appeared to show that another attack on Google had been approved by senior Chinese officials, reports Digitaltrends.com.