According to a report published in the New York Times (NYT) on Thursday, security investigations have revealed that the recent cyberattacks on Google and 30 other American companies had been initiated from two well-known schools in China – the Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School.

The investigations were being carried out by the National Security Agency, along with other specialists in digital forensics, with the aim of identifying the source of the attacks.

The Times’ report further elaborated that while Jiaotong University conducts one of the leading computer science programs in China; Lanxiang Vocational School provides training to some computer scientists for the Chinese military. However, the Chinese authorities have denied any involvement in the cyberattacks and have termed the country’s online censorship as legal.

As per the information forwarded by sources close to the investigations, while the Chinese involvement in the attacks has not been corroborated thus far, it is believed that the attacks – which came to fore last month - commenced as far back as April 2009.

Google, which had threatened to withdraw its operations from China, had revealed in January that hackers had compromised some of its computer code, in an attempt to hack the Gmail accounts of human rights activists who opposed China’s policies. For the hack, the digital thieves probably exploited a flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser.