In recent weeks, the Chinese have been accused not only of hacking the Pentagon, but also several German ministries and key sites in the UK, as well. In doing research for an upcoming story on the Pentagon attacks, I stumbled upon recent reports in Germany of surprisingly similar activity.

Germany's Federal Office for Information has identified malicious trojan-based attacks on government computers, attacks which some members of the German government say appear to originate from within the Chinese Army.

The story was first reported by German-language newspaper Spiegel Online, which said that investigators had found evidence of "Chinese espionage programs" on computers in several government agencies, including the office of German chancellor Angela Merkel. Federal Office for Information Security experts discovered the first spyware trojans months ago and successfully thwarted the transfer of over 160GB of data, according to the report. Chinese officials in Berlin originally criticized the finding as irresponsible speculation when it debuted late last month, but as the drama unfolds, that tune is changing.

Following the accusations, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told reporters that he was "gravely concerned" over the claims. "We in the government took (the reports) as a matter of grave concern. Hackers breaking into and sabotaging computers is a problem faced by the entire world," Wen said in a statement to reporters.

The attacks come at the same time that China finds itself accused of hacking the Pentagon. China has denied these allegations: a foreign ministry spokesperson told the BBC "some people are making wild accusations against China... These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality."

Yet as the accusations pile up, it is becoming harder to ignore. The UK's Times Online reported last week that China has also been identified trying to compromise security on government and military computer systems there.

In Germany, the issue of electronic spying isn't just limited to China. Hartwig Möller, head of the constitutional protection authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia, said that Iran has also recently attempted to infiltrate systems to obtain information on nuclear programs, according to Heise.

Nevertheless, all eyes are on China, now that three major players in the global economy have said that the country is almost certainly engaging in computer-based espionage.