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A HIGH RANKING US military figurine has told the Wall Street Journal that American military networks are under siege from hackers trying to nick sensitive, classified information. He pointed the finger at China. Sort of.

Gen. Kevin Chilton, who is a former astronaut and now heads the military's Strategic Command and all things cyberspace, was somewhat reluctant to point the finger directly at China, but said that there was plenty of evidence to suggest that China was behind most of the incidents and that 'you can kind of connect the dots'.

In the past, the U.S. has expressly linked China to a number of embarrassingly successful cyber attacks against their military networks, accusations which China hotly denies.

The US reckons that it has serious grounds for concern, admitting that its classified military and government networks come under attack tens of thousands of times a day.

Gen. Chilton, tactfully likened the hacking attempts to Cold War-era espionage, and accused the (possibly Chinese) hackers of trying to mine classified data.

The Chinese had better watch their backs because, according to the General, even if hackers don’t manage to crash the US military system and only slow it down a little bit, he still reckons "I would consider that an attack".

Beijing, consider thyself warned.