Anonymous Breaks China’s Wall, Hacks Into Hundreds of Government Websites

It's no secret that China spies on its friends and foes (see related story here.) But it looks like hacking group Anonymous took things in their hands and turned the tables on the country by hacking into several hundred Chinese government sites earlier this month.

The hacker group defaced a huge majority of the sites with their trademark ASCII text and leaked the administrator account details, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of some of the other sites.

People who were up to date in the underground scene were probably aware of the impending attack, since an Anonymous China Twitter account had already been set up since late March. In a span of few days, the hacktivists compromised corporate sites, government domains, and other general sites and posted a message to the Chinese government in some of the defaces sites.

China has since admitted to the attacks, although they made no mention of Anonymous in their statements.

First of all, China's Internet is open to all, users enjoy total freedom online. China has gained 500 million netizens and 300 million bloggers in a very short period of time, which shows the attraction and openness of China's Internet. Secondly, the Chinese government manages the Internet according to law and regulations. Thirdly, certain reports prove again that China is a victim of internet hacker attacks.

-- Hong Lei, spokesman

Article by Hazel Chua
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