Google says a likely phishing attack from Jinan has targeted hundreds of its Gmail email users.

In a post on its official blog, Google states, "We recently uncovered a campaign to collect user passwords, likely through phishing. This campaign, which appears to originate from Jinan, China, affected what seem to be the personal Gmail accounts of hundreds of users including, among others, senior U.S. government officials, Chinese political activists, officials in several Asian countries (predominantly South Korea), military personnel and journalists."

Over the last year, the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, which represents foreign journalists working in China, has separately warned its members of malware attacks targeting their own email accounts.

Google says its systems have not been disrupted and the goal of these hacking efforts appear to focus on monitoring the contents of these users' emails.

Google says it has "notified relevant government authorities", however the company was vague on whether these authorities were in the U.S., China, or elsewhere.