China
An attack on CNN is being blamed on Chinese 'hacktivists'

Chinese hackers target CNN

Trojan attempts to cripple news site

Shaun Nichols in California

A newly discovered application is attacking news website CNN in what security experts suspect to be an act of information warfare.

The 'anticnn.exe' program displays a small Chinese flag in the corner of the screen. When the user clicks on the flag, a window appears with a progress bar and a picture of Mao Zedong.

Advertisement

A message displayed above the picture reads: 'It is a red flag action: using rational action to express your patriotism.'

The application then attempts to connect to the CNN website and flood it with HTTP GET requests.

"The Chinese 'hacktivists' seem to believe that, as long as there are sufficient participants, they will be able to succeed in their attack," wrote McAfee researcher Di Tian.

"This attack looks like it will be hard to stop if many 'infected' users intend to get this tool and run it intentionally."

This kind of non-military, non-governmental battle has become an increasingly common phenomenon

Di Tian McAfee

Tian also said that the application could be distributed as a Trojan and spread through common malware channels such as spam, peer-to-peer services and hacked web pages.

The researcher suspects that the attack is a response to criticisms of the Chinese government by CNN reporters and analysts.

"I was not at all surprised," Tian wrote. "The appearance of this malware illustrates how information warfare works and proves that this kind of non-military, non-governmental battle has become an increasingly common phenomenon."

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Do you agree?

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

eu flag

V3.co.uk weekly debrief, 6 Nov 09

This week, Europe decides what to do with illegal file sharers

Intel unveils its micro server platform

Small-enclosure systems take aim at hosting market

IT white papers

Search white papers

Top categories

Poll

Impact of Information Overload poll

Impact of Information Overload poll

What is the biggest problem your firm faces as a result of the data explosion?

View poll results

Advertisement

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Spotlight

eu flag

V3.co.uk weekly debrief, 6 Nov 09

This week, Europe decides what to do with illegal file...

Dell Adamo XPS

Dell launches ultra-thin Adamo XPS

World's thinnest laptop will be available by Christmas

Top 10 articles, 6 November 2009

The worst Microsoft products of all time, and a USB...

Iain Thomson

Pirate Bay shutdown could be inspiring online militancy

Recent Swedish attacks raise worrying possibility

Primary Navigation