The Iranian Cyber Army has hijacked the home page of China’s top search engine Baidu, just weeks after its brought down Twitter.
Baidu’s homepage was briefly replaced with a message that claimed “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army” against a dark background and the flag of Iran.
This the second high-profile attack by the group, which hacked Twitter in December, replacing the homepage with the same headline and an anti-American message.
While Twitter played an important role in enabling communication during last June’s Iranian students protests, it’s not clear why Baidu’s website was targeted. However, experts claim the Iranian government is unlikely to be involved.
China and Iran enjoy a relatively good relationship based on energy, and Chinese state companies sell gas to Iran.
“This morning, Baidu’s domain name registration in the United States was tampered with, leading to inaccessibility,” said Baidu in a statement.
Baidu’s search engine was down for at least four hours.
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