Chief government information officer Corinne Charette said there was no evidence to suggest the attack on the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) computers had compromised overall government security.

China is often cited as a suspect in various hacking attacks on companies in the United States and other nations. Beijing dismisses allegations it is involved.

The NRC is the Canadian government's leading research and technology organization, which works with major firms such as aircraft and train maker Bombardier Inc..

Charette said Canada had recently "detected and confirmed a cyber intrusion on the IT infrastructure of the National Research Council of Canada by a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor".

Charette gave no further details of the attack. She said although NRC computers did not operate within the overall government system, they had been isolated as a precautionary measure.

"We have no evidence that data compromises have occurred on the broader government of Canada network," she said in a statement.

The attack was not the first hacking attempt in Canada that has been linked to China. In September 2012, Canada said it was aware hackers had breached security at a domestic manufacturer of software used by big energy companies.

At the time Ottawa declined to comment on a report by a cyber security news site saying evidence suggested a Chinese group was responsible.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged a Chinese businessman with hacking into the computer systems of Boeing and other companies in order to obtain data about military projects.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Andrea Ricci)