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Baidu, China's largest Internet search engine, was the target of a four-hour cyber attack yesterday, the most severe since it was established in 1999.

The company said it had restored services for most Internet users by 6 pm.

A hacker group, calling itself Iranian Cyber Army, hijacked Baidu's home page. The group left a message in Farsi saying that the act was a protest against foreign involvement in Iran's domestic politics.

The attack resembles the one that took down Twitter, the US-based micro blogging service provider, last month. In that case, a group also calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army claimed responsibility.

Baidu, in a forum run by the company, called the attack unprecedented.

In a statement yesterday, Baidu also apologized to Chinese netizens for the inconvenience caused by the cyber attack.

It noted that attackers did not try to break into the servers of Baidu but attacked the domain name registrar used by Baidu, which is based in the US. Baidu called it a new phenomenon and said it sounds an alarm for online security.

At about 7:40 am, Baidu went offline and at times displayed an image consisting of Iran's national flag, words in Farsi and a torn national flag of Israel.

A screenshot of the defaced site showed an announcement in English that read: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army". The sentence below declared in Farsi the establishment of "Cyber Iran to protest the intervention of foreign and Israeli sites in our internal affairs and distribution of false news".

The Iranian embassy in Beijing rejected any speculation that the cyber group is related to its government, and condemned the illegal action.

Questions:

1. How many times has Baidu.com been hacked in the past?

2. Did the Iranian government take responsibility for the cyber attack?

3. What does the cyber attack against Baidu have in common with US-based Twitter?

Answers:

1. None. Baidu calls yesterday are hacker attack unprecedented.

2. No. The Iranian embassy in Beijing rejected any link to the cyber group and also condemned what it called an illegal action.

3. The attack is like the one that temporarily shut down Twitter, the US-based micro-blogging service provider, last month. In that case, the group also called itself the Iranian Cyber Army.

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（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

About the broadcaster:

Renee Haines is an editor and broadcaster at China Daily. Renee has more than 15 years of experience as a newspaper editor, radio station anchor and news director, news-wire service reporter and bureau chief, magazine writer, book editor and website consultant. She came to China from the United States.