Group behind Twitter hack takes down Baidu.com
IDG News Service - The group that took down Twitter.com last month has apparently claimed another victim: China's largest search engine Baidu.com.
Baidu.com was offline late Monday, but at one point it displayed an image saying "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army," according to a report in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party and other Web sites.
With more than half of China's Internet search market, Baidu is by far China's most-used search engine. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Not much is known about the Iranian Cyber Army, which first gained notoriety with its December 18 Twitter attack. Hacking groups such as this are constantly defacing Web sites, but it is extremely rare for them to take down a site as widely used as Twitter or Baidu.com.
According to security experts, Baidu's domain name records appear to have been tampered with. On Monday, the company was using domain name servers belonging to HostGator, a Florida ISP, instead of the Baidu.com nameservers the company normally uses. "It looks like their domain account credentials may have been snagged," said Paul Ferguson, a researcher with the antivirus vendor Trend Micro.
That's the same technique that was used to hijack Twitter, when Iranian Cyber Army hackers were apparently able to log in to the account used to manage Twitter's DNS records and redirect visitors to another Web server that posted a message similar to the one spotted on Baidu.com. That attack knocked Twitter offline for more than an hour.
Baidu's domain name registrar, Register.com, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Owen Fletcher in Beijing contributed to this story.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) Case Study - Oracle
- In this paper, Forrester Consulting examines the total economic impact and potential return on investment (ROI) realized by three Enterprise organizations as they...
- The Hidden Truth About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications
- This IDG whitepaper highlights key findings based on the Quickpoll Survey conducted with more than 300 Enterprise and Commercial IT decision makers worldwide...
- Top 10 Myths About Virtualizing Business-Critical Applications
- Even though virtualization has brought positive change to enterprise IT over the last decade, some skepticism remains about how valuable virtualization can be...
- Enterprise Java Applications on VMware: Unix to Linux Migration Guide
- This guide focuses on key considerations for IT Architects who are in the process of migrating Java applications from UNIX to Linux as...
- Virtualizing Tier 1 Applications: A Critical Step on the Journey Toward the Private Cloud
- This IDC white paper explains how much of the Enterprise IT community is at a crossroads in extending their journey to the private... All Applications White Papers
- Live Webcast
Banish Poor Application Performance: Eliminate Business Disruptions, Increase End User Productivity - End User Experience, 30-Min Webinar
Wed. Feb. 22nd ~ 11 AM ET
Are you ready to gain the proactive ability to rapidly respond... - Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Virtualize Business-Critical Applications with Confidence
- Virtualizing business-critical applications has become a key focus for organizations as they move along their virtualization journey. With the launch of VMware vSphere®...
- Discover the Benefits of Virtualization for Federal Applications
- Want to say goodbye to missed SLAs? VMware can help you virtualize mission-critical applications such as Oracle, MS Exchange and SharePoint to achieve...
- Reduce Application Lifecycle Management Costs with VMware ThinApp
- Traditional desktop application deployment and management is a time-consuming and costly endeavor for IT. From development to deployment, including help desk support, the... All Applications Webcasts