Two Chinese schools have been implicated in last December's attacks against Google and other Western companies.

"Security experts, including investigators from the National Security Agency, now reckon the attacks date from April last year, far earlier than previously suspected, the New York Times reports," writes The Register's John Leyden. "Although the attacks originated from China, it's by no means clear that they were orchestrated by the Chinese government. It's even possible that hackers from outside China ran, or had an involvement in, at least some of the attacks."

"However one prominent strand in the ongoing investigation is focusing on two Chinese computer science facilities -- Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School," Leyden writes.

Click here to read the article at The Register.