China reportedly to probe IBM, Oracle, EMC over security concerns

The Chinese government is reportedly preparing to probe IBM, Oracle and EMC over security issues after former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden warned the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on user information.

According to Reuters on Friday, citing local newspaper Shanghai Securities News, that China's ministry of public security and another cabinet-level research center will be investigating the U.S. companies.

"At present, thanks to their technological superiority, many of our core information technology systems are basically dominated by foreign hardware and software firms, but the PRISM scandal implies security problems," the newspaper said, quoting an anonymous source.

When approached by the newswire, all three U.S. companies were not available for comment.

The report comes after Snowden revealed in June that the NSA has been hacking Chinese mobile companies to steal text messages and attacking the servers at Tsinghua University for survelliance purposes.

Slides had leaked from an NSA presentation in mid-June, revealing a program called PRISM which allegedly sifted user data from U.S. Web companies and raised concerns of a close relationship between those companies and the NSA.

Anonymous sources also told Reuters on Friday Snowden had downloaded NSA documents while working for Dell in 2012 and left an electronic footprint when he accessed the documents, a year earlier than previously thought.