OTTAWA: Canada's prime minister said Thursday authorities were dealing with cyber threats following reports of a cyberattack penetrating two key agencies and forcing them offline.

"This is certainly an issue we are aware of and our security personnel are engaged in dealing with," Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters.

"I can't comment on national security," he said. "But I can say that cyber security is an issue across the world, in this era of electronic means we have a strategy to counter such attacks and we're working with all of our allies to reduce risks."

Canada's public broadcaster reported on Wednesday that hackers had penetrated computer systems at the Finance Department and the Treasury Board.

They also infiltrated computers in the offices of senior government officials in a bid to steal passwords providing access to key government data.

Canada's government has declined to comment in detail on the attacks, first detected in January, but CBC cited government sources as saying they were traced to servers in China.

CBC said it was unclear whether the attackers were Chinese or simply other nationals who used China-based servers, but another Canadian television network, CTV, reported they were "Chinese government hackers".

Beijing rejected the reports as "groundless."