Epoch Times Websites Targeted in Suspected CCP-Linked Cyberattack

The Epoch Times’ websites have again been targeted in a coordinated mass cyberattack.

Readers and supporters around the world reported that they were unable to access The Epoch Times’ Chinese and English language websites starting at about 5 p.m. ET on July 20.

According to the head of the company’s technology department, the incident was a denial-of-service (DOS) attack using tens of thousands of compromised computers with IPs located around the world to overwhelm The Epoch Times’ servers.

“The large-scale, coordinated attack attempted to exhaust Epoch Times web servers’ computing and bandwidth resources to impact their ability to serve legitimate users,” he said.

The large volume attack—which particularly targeted The Epoch Times’ Chinese language website—lasted more than four hours.

The attacks started a few days earlier but peaked on July 20—a sensitive date for China’s ruling regime.

On July 20, 1999, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a deadly campaign to eradicate a popular spiritual practice in China called Falun Gong. Practitioners in the United States established The Epoch Times in 2000 to warn the world of the CCP’s ongoing human rights atrocities.

Every year on July 20, The Epoch Times publishes news and updates about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. When the persecution started, the estimated one in 13 Chinese people who were practicing the spiritual discipline were made enemies of the state overnight.

A large but unknown number of practitioners have since been illegally coerced, detained, brainwashed, tortured, or killed for their beliefs. Many have been victims of the CCP’s live organ harvesting crimes, first reported as occurring in state-run hospitals.

Political figures from various countries expressed their support for Falun Gong—a spiritual self-improvement practice that teaches practitioners to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance—on the anniversary this year. The U.S. State Department issued a statement calling on the CCP to stop suppressing Falun Gong and release all those imprisoned for their beliefs.

The Epoch Times’ technology department said the company believes the DOS attack on July 20 was linked to the CCP.

“The Chinese Communist Party chose this day to attack the Epoch Times website, highlighting its fear of the widespread broadcast of the truth about 7/20,” the department head said.

Such a cyberattack on The Epoch Times is not uncommon. CCP hackers have been consistently attacking the Chinese and English Epoch Times websites since the company’s establishment in 2000, particularly around key dates or important political events in China.

In April, a U.S. intelligence agency told The Epoch Times that it had traced a similar cyberattack to the CCP.

That attack occurred on April 25, another sensitive date related to Falun Gong—the 25th anniversary of a peaceful demonstration by 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners outside the enclave for senior CCP leaders, Zhongnanhai, on April 25, 1999. It was the largest such gathering since the Tiananmen Square democracy protests.