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January 12th, 2010

Twitter DNS Hackers Hit Chinese Search Engine Baidu.com

The same group that used a DNS attack to hijack Twitter last month has defaced the home page of Chinese search engine Baidu.

Baidu, formed in 2000, is China’s number one search engine, dominating the home market for online searches – partly because it had a six year head start over Google. As a result of its huge popularity, it’s no wonder that from time to time hackers might try and take advantage of the site, just as top websites can be in the frame for attack in the West.

Surfers visiting Baidu site on Monday night were confronted by the message “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army”, together with an image of the Iranian flag. Early speculation suggests the attack involved changing Baidu’s DNS records rather than a direct attack on the site itself, but this remains unconfirmed.

The attack might have been used to point the millions of Chinese users who use Baidu every day towards a site that took advantage of browser exploits to infect computer users with malware. So it’s perhaps fortunate that the Baidu hack involved only political graffiti.

By Tuesday morning, Baidu’s site had been cleaned up.

Credit: The Register, Sophos Blogs

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    One Response to “Twitter DNS Hackers Hit Chinese Search Engine Baidu.com”

    1. You really saved my skin with this information. Thanks!


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