The United States announced possible economic sanctions against the culprit of the recent hacking of the federal employees records. In response, China responded angrily to unofficial reports accusing it of the breach.

At the same time, Obama administration didn’t officially confirm claims of Chinese involvement, since the FBI continues to investigate the leak of the personal data of up to 4 million federal employees. However, when asked if the president would consider sanctions against the guilty government or company, the press secretary pointed at new legal authorities of the president to use economic sanctions to punish the culprit of a cyber intrusion.

In the wake of the mass-scale hack, the US officials also decided to accelerate the rollout of the new internal security software. Among the recent attacks there is one against the US Office of Personnel Management and against the Department of State. It was attributed privately to the Russians. Before, a Sony hack was blamed openly on North Korea and led to direct sanctions.

Now the security experts suspect Chinese hackers, and Obama is known to frequently raise China’s activities in cyberspace as a significant source of concern. In response, Chinese foreign ministry claimed that the United States should be less suspicious and stop making any unverified allegations. China pointed out that hacker attacks are conducted anonymously, across nations, and it is very difficult to track the source, which requires deep investigation.

At the same time, the US officials said they may not make a formal accusation even if they knew who is responsible for the hack.