U.S. intelligence authorities say Chinese hackers with government support are the main culprits behind the recent surge in economic espionage targeting American corporations.

Randall Coleman, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's counterintelligence division, revealed Thursday that there has been a 53 percent spike in economic spying cases. These activities have resulted in the theft of U.S. trade secrets and intellectual property. Last year, the country is said to have lost billions of dollars as a result of such activities.

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Although China has denied responsibility for these cyber attacks, U.S. officials say the Asian country presents the biggest challenge in terms of economic espionage.

A recently conducted FBI survey shows that Beijing was behind 95 percent of 165 cyber attacks targeting U.S. targeted firms.

As a result of these illegal activities, which intelligence officials regard as a national security threat, the FBI has launched a campaign to warn firms of the impending dangers. The awareness campaign aims at equipping corporations with the best methods of protecting their trade secrets and intellectual properties.

The FBI has also assigned coordinators serving as strategic partners to companies that may have suffered from either trade secret or intellectual property theft.

"Protection of our proprietary information and trade secrets is a critical pillar to our national security,"    said Willaim Evanina, head of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. "The way we look at it, economic security is national security."

These attacks, which in the past have been successful against large firms, have also targeted U.S. military technological advancements and proprietary.

"It's across the board," said Dean Chappell, a high-ranking FBI counterintelligence division official. "It's not high-end avionics for military aircraft, it's not joint strike fighter stuff. It's all of the things that we see every day."

The survey has also revealed a change in the traditional methods of economic espionage, as the demographic of the spies has evolved. Many spies are suspected to be in the U.S. and working as moles from inside the targeted organizations.

According to Evanina, these individuals, who are working as spies, may be disguised as engineers, professors, businessmen and even travel students.

U.S. officials say Beijing is backing these spying schemes as a way to stay ahead as its economy continues to grow.

"To sustain its phenomenal growth rate, China must employ cyber attacks to steal information," said Scott Borg, director and chief economist of U.S. Cyber Consequences, a non-profit research outfit.

"Cyber attacks stealing competitively important business information are a fundamental part of the national economic development strategy of China. For this reason, getting China to moderate this behavior will be extremely difficult."

Despite these accusations, Beijing insists that China is also a victim of massive cyber attacks targeting its economic secrets and intellectual properties.

China also points a finger at the U.S. for being one of the most aggressive culprits of cyber espionage against China and other countries.

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