Chinese human rights domains hit by Denial-of-Service attack

by Steve Ragan - Jan 25 2010, 20:02

Over the weekend, five sites supporting human rights in China were hit with a severe Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack, which lasted around 16 hours.

The websites of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), Independent Chinese Pen (ICPC), New Century News, Canyu and Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch (CRLW) were all attacked between January 23 and January 24, a statement reported.

The CHRD attack started about 1600 local time, and ran until 1800 the following morning, the statement added. According to CHRD’s Internet service provider (ISP), the attack sent 2GBs of traffic per second during the height of the incident, earning it the title of the most intense attack the ISP had ever experienced.

The source IP addresses were all spoofed, so there is no way to prove their actual origin. Tracking down some of the spoofed IP addresses pointed to hosting services here in the U.S., but the trail goes cold after that.

Prior to the DDOS attack, Malware was injected on the CHRD and New Century News, websites (the injected malicious code has since been removed). There is speculation that the two incidents were related. According to the CHRD, its website has frequently been targeted for attack, causing inaccessibility for days, especially during sensitive periods in China.

CHRD and CRLW are human rights organizations based in China. ICPC is a writers' association, while New Century News and Canyu are news-based websites. These websites are all run by Chinese activists.

It should also be noted that there is no direct link between these DoS attacks and the recent attacks on Google (and other online destinations), which have been making headlines in the past weeks.

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