Hackers Paralyze China's Top Search Engine

China's largest search engine, Baidu.com, said that it was temporarily shut down after a cyberattack Tuesday.

Hackers briefly blocked access to China's top search engine by steering traffic to another Web site where a group reportedly calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" claimed responsibility.

"Services on Baidu's main website www.baidu.com were interrupted today due to external manipulation of its DNS in the U.S. Baidu has been resolving this issue and the majority of services have been restored," Baidu spokesman Victor Tseng said in a statement.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regular news briefing Tuesday that China "opposes all cyber crimes, including hacking."

There was no evidence the hackers are actually linked to Iran.

However, a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" shut down Twitter last month.

Baidu, pronounced "by-doo," holds a market value of about $13 billion and dominates China's Internet search like Google dominates the market in just about every other major country in the world.

The research firm Analysys International pegs Baidu's share at about 62 percent of China's internet search market compared to 29 percent for Google.

[armyoftwelve]

A very serious attack. We'll see if the claimant of responsibility is for real in due time. I wonder if the PRC will launch secretive attacks of its own against iran?

[OldTimeTruth]

China has freedom of information? Ya right. Why don't they just open up Google so their people can really see what is going on in the world. Yet we as Americans still buy and borrow from China and support their government. Wake up!

[thesevenveils]

Very Interesting,
This is at least the Second attack on the DNS records in as many months. This weakest link must be given another coat of armor.

[I_am_me1953]

From the above article, "There was no evidence the hackers are actually linked to Iran."


__________________________

Yeah, riiiiiiiiight!

[DaVicar8]

They have a search engine in China?

What, you type in anything and it takes you to the Government Website?