Beijing - China on Tuesday denied that it has spied on computers belonging to foreign governments and other organizations, saying the claims by Canadian researchers were caused by a "China threat virus."

   Some groups and individuals outside China "are fabricating lies of so-called Chinese computer spies," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said, when asked about the Canadian report that some 1,300 computers worldwide might have been infiltrated by the largely China-based "GhostNet" system.

   "People haunted by the ghost of the Cold War occasionally suffer from the 'China threat' virus," Qin told reporters.

   "Their attempt to tarnish China with lies is doomed to failure," he said.

   "The Chinese government always pays attention to network security and strictly opposes any criminal damage to the internet, including hacking," Qin said.

    The Canadian researchers concluded that a spying operation infiltrated computers - many of them belonging to governments - in 103 countries, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

   Victims of the malicious software, or malware, include computers in the offices of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan exile centres around the world, NATO headquarters in Brussels, and the Indian embassy to the United States.

   The report, to be released this week by the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto, says that the spying system was controlled by computers based almost entirely in China.

   But the researchers were careful not to accuse the Chinese government of being behind the security breach.