The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China website was impacted on Monday in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The attack caused the website to slow significantly, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The global coalition of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) is an international cross-party group of legislators whose goal is to reform on how democratic countries approach Beijing and to induce governments to take a stronger stance on China. IPAC comprises about 200 MPs from 20 legislatures around the world. The coalition is known for its long-standing support for the Uyghurs and Hongkongers, minority groups in the country oppressed by the Chinese government.
After IPAC learned its website had been hit by an attack on Monday, IPAC co-ordinator Luke de Pulford claimed it was Beijing behind the attack. He commented that China would not stop the IPAC members from standing up for the oppressed minorities.
“While Beijing might be able to knock us off the internet for a few hours – nothing will stop our members standing up for the Uyghurs, Hongkongers, and everyone else oppressed by Xi’s regime,” said Pulford.
Robert Pritchard, the founder of The Cyber Security Expert blog, shares the opinion that it was a Chinese attack since the Chinese have the means to conduct such DDoS attacks and said a DDoS attack like this one cannot happen by accident.
“Attacks like this, against critics of the Chinese state, are really clearly just meant either to prevent people accessing publish material the Chinese state apparatus finds objectionable, or simply to disrupt the operations of the target,” Pritchard said.
The attack came a week after Beijing sanctioned a former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who is also a member of the IPAC, and a former minister Nusrat Ghani.
