China fell prey to one of the largest hacker attacks ever yesterday. Every domain name system (DNS) servers operating under Xinnet, a leading hosting service provider, was hacked, shutting down tens of thousands of websites.

At around 4: 30 PM, netizens were unable to access numerous popular website, including Skycn.com, China's biggest software download site and China's famed webmaster community, im286.com.

An employee confirmed the attack and told China.org.cn in a telephone interview that they have been recovering the servers and data for hours since the breakdown. Thus far, most webs have recovered.

"This is huge. All servers were down, which have affected more than 100,000 websites," he sighed, confirming police have been notified. No possible hacker has been named, but an investigation is under way.

Founded in 1993, Xinnet offers a broad range of Internet services, including domain name registry, hosting and e-mail services, website design and advertising as well as research and development of other web-based products.

As China's biggest domain name registry agency, Xinnet oversees 600,000 registered domain names and controls 20 percent of market share in China's Internet service industry.

Ironically, yesterday saw the opening of the 2006 China Internet Conference in Beijing, hosted by the Internet Society of China, and where web security will be one of the main topics of discussion.

Jiang Yaoping, vice minister of information industry, said at the conference that China is stepping up efforts in supervising the Internet. A series of rules and regulations have been worked out, including the Internet Safety Emergency Plan.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, September 22, 2006)