HONG KONG (CNNMoney)
Were you trying to access a .cn Internet address over the weekend? Are you still hitting refresh?
Internet users in China were met with sluggish response times early Sunday as the country's domain extension came under a "denial of service" attack.
The attack was the largest of its kind ever in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a state agency that manages the .cn country domain.
The double-barreled attacks took place at around 2 a.m. Sunday, and then again at 4 a.m. The second attack was "long-lasting and large-scale," according to state media, which said that service was slowly being restored.
Official state media said the attack targeted websites with the .cn country domain, as well as the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.
Denial of service attacks aren't technically "hacks," since they can be done without breaking into any systems. Typically, DoS attacks overwhelm a website's servers by flooding them with requests. That makes websites unreachable or unresponsive.
To bring down bigger sites, attackers will sometimes organize large numbers of infected computers to send requests all at once.
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Chinese authorities closely regulate content and websites available to Internet users in the country. The restrictions are extremely sophisticated, leading some to call it a second "Great Wall."
It's unclear whether the attack is related to political events in China, which appears to be in the midst of carrying out a crackdown on Internet dissent.
The government is also wrapping up the trial of former political kingpin Bo Xilai, leading some Internet users in China to note the timing of the attack.
"CN domain name under attack?," one user said on Weibo. "Saw this news and laughed. On every 'festive occasion' doesn't China's Internet become paralyzed?"
Another user lodged a more practical complaint, noting that the sluggish Internet would probably leave many Chinese without sleep.
-- Sophia Yan contributed reporting.
Hier matin, la  a été victime d'une  par déni de service distribué (DDos) touchant le domaine .cn. Le déni de service consiste à innonder un même serveur de requêtes jusqu'à conduire au blockout de celui-ci. Des millions de sites ont été touchés, y compris , le  chinois. Les sites du domaines ont été fortement ralentis et certains ont été partiellement coupés. Selon le , il s'agit de la plus importante cyberattaque de l'histoire du pays.

La première attaque a commencé vers minuit (heure de ), suivie d'une seconde plus importante vers 4 heures du matin. La quasi totalité du réseau a pu être restaurée vers 10 heures. On ne sait pas d'où provenait cette attaque et si elle est toujours en cours.

Interviewé par le China real time report, l'expert américain en renseignement Matthew Aid estime que ces attaques "ont démontré la vulnérabilité du web chinois face à des agressions extérieures". "Si tous les sites internet chinois peuvent être hackés avec une simple attaque par déni de service, leur réseau est plus vulnérable que nous le pensions", ajoute-t-il.