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Leading Chinese search engine Baidu.com has filed a lawsuit that blames a U.S.-based Internet domain registrar for allegedly allowing a hacking attack that left the site disabled and defaced.
Baidu filed suit in New York on against Register.com, claiming that the domain registrar's "gross negligence" led to the search giant being "unlawfully and maliciously altered," the company said in a statement Tuesday. Baidu's site was disabled for several hours on January 12, and visitors were redirected to a site where a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" claimed responsibility for the attack.
Earlier discussion: Baidu was hacked [webmasterworld.com]
Baidu lawsuit: Register.com rep refused aid after hack [networkworld.com]An online chat representative at Register.com refused to help Baidu when contacted about the search engine's domain name routing users to another Web site instead, according to Baidu's court complaint, which was filed this week with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint confirmed that visitors to Baidu.com had been taken instead to a site showing the Iranian flag, a broken Star of David and the message, "This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army."
Domain services from companies like Register.com ensure users are sent to the right Web site when they type in an address like Baidu.com. Changes made to Baidu's account with the registrar disrupted the search engine's service for about five hours last week, and Baidu's operations did not fully resume for two days, the complaint said.
Baidu was also unable to reach Register.com by phone and the registrar did not start working to restore Baidu's service until two hours after first being contacted by Baidu, it said.
