NSA leaker: US hacking computer systems in China, Hong Kong

The United States government has been hacking into computers in China and Hong Kong for years, former government contractor Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post.

Snowden said the National Security Agency has carried out hacking attacks against nonmilitary targets since 2009, with the newspaper citing "unverified documents." He said the targets of these attacks included Chinese university and public officials, businesses and students. Snowden believes there are "hundreds" of NSA hacking targets based in Hong Kong and mainland China, and there are more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, according to the Post's report. “We hack network backbones – like huge internet routers, basically – that give us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one,” said Snowden.