Foiled: Chinese plan to bust CNN website

A group of Chinese hackers has called off a planned attack on the CNN website after fears that their plan had been foiled.

The hackers’ plan to attack at the weekend ended up being widely reported across the web after The Dark Visitor, a Chinese hacking website, revealed the plan on Friday morning.

The attack was planned to protest at all the “anti-Chinese” media coverage in the West. CNN was chosen because it is perceived to have given biased coverage of the Tibet protests in the run up to the Beijing Olympics this summer.

Participants in the hack were told to flood CNN’s website with traffic to overwhelm its capacity and knock it off-line.

CNN’s website was attacked for a short period on Thursday, causing users in Asia limited access. However, CNN said that the effects of the attack were “imperceptible”.

The weekend attack was called off because too many people became aware of it, leading to what the organisers called a “chaotic” situation. Another attack is planned on an “unspecified date” in the near future.