Following up earlier reports that a Chinese military unit was responsible to numerous hacking attacks against U.S. companies, China's Defense Ministry today said that its web site has been also a victim of U.S.-based attackers. The Ministry of National Defense said that China, like other countries, faces a severe threat of cyberattacks and is one of the major victims of cyberattacks.

"In 2012, about 73,000 overseas IP addresses controlled more than 14 million computers in China and 32,000 IP addresses remotely controlled 38,000 Chinese websites, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular news conference on Tuesday.

"Attacks originating from the United States rank the first among these hackings, Hong added."

He added that the Chinese army was also one of the top victims. From January to March 2012, the websites of China's Ministry of National Defense and China Military Online suffered 240,000 cyberattacks, according to the Ministry of National Defense.

This month security company Mandiant said that a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks mostly targeting the United States.

China denied the allegations.