CNN cyberattack called off

IDG News Service - A planned cyberattack against CNN's Web site fizzled out Saturday as the group backing the event called it off.

"Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic," wrote a group called "Revenge of the Flame," according to a translation posted on the "Dark Visitor" blog. "At an unspecified date in the near future, we will launch the attack."

Pro-China hackers had called for the attack in protest of the news network's coverage of Tibet, which they believe has been overly critical of China. Participants had been instructed to flood Cable News Network LP's Web site with Internet traffic in hopes of knocking it offline, something known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack.

Some had begun hitting the site ahead of the April 19 attack date.

On Friday, CNN reported that it had been attacked Thursday, causing the site "to be slow or unavailable to some users in limited areas of Asia." The net effect of the attack was "imperceptible," CNN said.

Arbor Networks Inc. observed that www3.cnn.com was hit with a minor 14MB-per-second attack that lasted about 21 minutes, according to Danny McPherson, the network-monitoring company's chief research officer.