The global coalition of MPs of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, (IPAC) who are pushing their governments to take a strong stance against Beijing, has suffered a major cyber attack.
The IPAC's website was down on Monday, after suffering a DDoS attack (distributed denial-of-service), causing the site to slow significantly, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Responding to the attack, IPAC co-ordinator Luke de Pulford said that Beijing might be able to knock them off the internet for a few hours but nothing will stop their members from standing up for the Uyghurs and Hongkongers.
"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.
The Chinese state had the apparatus to conduct DDoS attacks, said Robert Pritchard, founder of The Cyber Security Expert.
"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, adding that a DDoS attack cannot happen by accident.
This cyber-attack comes days after Beijing slapped sanctions against several UK and US officials. Incidentally, IPAC includes former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and former minister Nusrat Gh - who were both sanctioned by Beijing last week.
IPAC was set up in 2020. It comprises around 200 MPs from 20 legislatures around the world including Australia, the UK, US and Germany.
Chinese state media has previously termed IPAC as the "nuisance alliance".
( With inputs from ANI )
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