Many big American companies are losing billions of dollars annually in order to counter China's cyberattacks, said Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey on Sunday.

In an interview with CBS television's "60 Minutes" program, the FBI chief said that China is the country keenest on stealing sensitive information from American companies to benefit their industry. Comey refused to name any firm, but he noted that almost every major company in the United States had been targeted.

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Providing more details, Comey classified these companies into two: "There are those who've been hacked by the Chinese, and those who don't know they've been hacked by the Chinese." He added that, with all these companies' losses combined, the overall monetary damage would be "impossible to count" but ranging in "billions."

Although the FBI chief held the names of the Chinese entities involved in the information pilferage, he cited the case of China's People's Liberation Army.

The Guardian published a related story on May 20, saying that the U.S. Justice Department indicted five Chinese military officers with data pilferage from six American companies and unions. China's foreign ministry dismissed the allegation as "extremely ridiculous" and demanded the U.S. government to rectify its mistake and repeal the lawsuit.

Asked about the probable reason for the cyberattacks, Comey said that China was trying to obtain "information that's useful to them so that they don't have to invent." Then he described the hacking efforts as drunk burglary, saying, "They're kickin' in the front door, knocking over the vase, while they're walking out with your television set."

With big companies like U.S. Steel, Alcoa and Westinghouse Electrical Company as victims of the attacks, the U.S. government has taken the appropriate action. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew informed that President Barack Obama has issued an executive order to address the problem.

"They're taking it seriously," said Lew. "I don't think there's a CEO in the financial sector that doesn't wake up in the morning with this on their mind," he added.

Since August, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service have been investigating the scope of the cyberattacks against major American businesses.

TagsChina cyberattacks, cyberattacks U.S. companies, China cyber-war, China hacking U.S. companies