Slamming US security firm Mandiant's recent report that a Shanghai-based People's Liberation Army (PLA) unit was engaged in cyberwarfare against US corporations, organizations and government agencies, the China's Defense Ministry has issued a strong denial of the allegations leveled by Mandiant.

With the Mandiant report having identified PLA Unit 61398 in Shanghai as one of the world's most aggressive computer hacking operations, the Defense Ministry said at a Wednesday news conference in Beijing that the report was flawed, and termed the accusations as `destructive.'

Mandiant had released a detailed report on its website on Tuesday, supporting it with noteworthy evidence which not only included Internet protocol addresses, but also the identities of a number of Chinese individuals that it thinks were behind some of the cyberattacks against the US. Mandiant also claimed that it had monitored the hackers because they had logged onto social networking sites or via e-mail accounts.

Challenging the Mandiant report for mischaracterizing China's activities, Geng Yansheng - a Ministry of National Defense spokesman - said that cyberattacks originating in the US had actually victimized China, and not the other way round.

Asserting that the military forces in China have "never supported any hacking activities," Geng said at the news conference: "The claim by the Mandiant company that the Chinese military engages in Internet espionage has no foundation in fact."