Telegram says it was hit by a powerful cyberattack from China as a major protest unfolded in Hong Kong.
Encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram say that messages sent on their systems cannot be decoded by third parties during the delivery from sender to recipient."We can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression," Telegram says on its website.
Telegram said that the latest attack was a distributed denial of service in which"your servers get GADZILLIONS of garbage requests which stop them from processing legitimate requests."The protest in Hong Kong forced the legislature to cancel its sessions Wednesday and Thursday, putting off debate on the extradition legislation.
Opponents say the bill would severely compromise their freedoms and erode Hong Kong's legal independence. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam maintains the legislation is necessary and would have safeguards to ensure human rights are protected.Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory, enjoys greater freedoms than mainland China under a"one country, two systems" framework put in place when the former British colony was returned to China in 1997.
The U.S. government has complained for years about data breaches by China to steal high-tech information and other trade secrets — a key factor in the current trade dispute between China and the United States. Pentagon leaders told a congressional committee this month that cyberattacks from China are increasingly sophisticated.
When asked about the Telegram issue at a daily news briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was not aware of the case but that"China always opposes any form of cyberattack."
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