Encrypted messaging service Telegram was targeted by a major cyberattack that originated from China, CEO Pavel Durov said yesterday, linking it to ongoing political unrest in Hong Kong, as protesters planned another demonstration for Sunday.
Many protesters in the territory have used Telegram to evade surveillance and coordinate their demonstrations against a bill that would allow extraditions to China.
Telegram on Wednesday announced that it was suffering a “powerful” distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which involves a hacker overwhelming a target’s servers by making a massive number of junk requests.
Photo: AFP
Users in many regions might face connection issues, it said.
Durov said that the junk requests came mostly from China.
“Historically, all state actor-sized DDoS (200-400 Gb/s of junk) we experienced coincided in time with protests in Hong Kong,” he tweeted.
Telegram later announced that its service had stabilized. It also posted a series of tweets explaining the nature of the attack.
“Imagine that an army of lemmings just jumped the queue at McDonald’s in front of you — and each is ordering a whopper,” it said. “The server is busy telling the whopper lemmings they came to the wrong place — but there are so many of them that the server can’t even see you to try and take your order.”
Meanwhile, Hong Kong protest leaders announced plans for another rally on Sunday.
Sporadic demonstrations broke out again yesterday, with occasional scuffles with police, but crowds were much smaller and there was no repeat of the running battles of the day before.
The government attempted to reduce tensions by indefinitely postponing a legislative debate on the bill.
However, demonstrators have vowed to not let up, calling for a rally on Sunday and a territory-wide strike on Monday next week.
The police response has drawn criticism from a range of influential bodies, with calls for an independent inquiry into “excessive force” from a top legal body that helps elect the territory’s leader.
The Hong Kong Bar Association also said that the police “may well have overstepped its lawful powers” with “wholly unnecessary force against largely unarmed protesters who did not appear to pose any immediate threat to the police or the public.”
Beijing said that it fully supports the authorities’ handling of the protests.
“What happened in the Admiralty area was not a peaceful rally, but a riot organized by a group,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) told reporters.
In a televised speech on Wednesday evening, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) denounced the demonstration as “blatant, organized riots.”
“[Such behavior] will not be tolerated in any civilizations or societies governed by the rule of law,” she said.
The international community has also voiced concern.
The EU called for the “fundamental right” of Hong Kongers to assemble and express themselves to be respected, adding that the bill has “potentially far-reaching consequences for Hong Kong and its people, for EU and foreign citizens, as well as for business confidence in Hong Kong.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May said that it is vital that the bill does not breach the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984.
Additional reporting by CNA
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