BEIJING – China’s military said Thursday that overseas computer hackers targeted two of its websites an average of 144,000 times per month last year, with almost two-thirds of the attacks originating in the United States.

The claim from Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng follows accusations last week by American cybersecurity company Mandiant that Chinese military-backed cyberspies infiltrated overseas networks and stole massive amounts of data from U.S. companies and other entities.

Geng said an average of 62.9 percent of the attacks on the Defense Ministry’s official website and that of its newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army Daily, came from the United States.