The mainland's biggest internet services provider, China Telecom, confirmed yesterday that one of its computer systems had been attacked by a group of hackers and some users' passwords stolen.
But the state-owned company denied that the attack had caused any serious damage.
On Sunday, hacker group SwaggSec released a statement claiming that it had obtained millions of user names with passwords for unspecified systems. The passwords were housed in a loosely guarded China Telecom database server.
To prove the claim, the group released a document that it said contained 900 administrator-level access codes to China Telecom's internal network.
A company spokesman said yesterday that it assessed the damage after the attack, and the hackers' claims were hugely exaggerated.
'The server they attacked was not part of our core system and the data they stole had little value,' he said. 'Hacking attempts similar to this one happen almost daily and China Telecom is prepared for such an incident.
'Our clients have no need to worry. Their interests have not been compromised.'