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People using email clients like Outlook,
Mozilla's Thunderbird and apps on their phone with the SMTP and
IMAP email protocols, which are used to send and receive
messages, around Saturday were subject to a "man-in-the-middle"
(MITM) attack, said China-based GreatFire.org.
A MITM attack hijacks an online connection to monitor and
sometimes control communications made through that channel.
Attacks and blocks on foreign internet services have become
increasingly common with China, which operates the world's most
sophisticated online censorship mechanism, known as the Great
Firewall, to eliminate any signs of dissent or challenges to the
ruling Communist Party.
Critics say China has stepped up its disruption of foreign
online services like Google over the past year to create an
Internet cut off from the rest of the world.
GreatFire.org said on Monday that China's official Cyberspace
Administration of China (CAC) was likely responsible for the
MITM attack on Outlook.
"If our accusation is correct, this new attack signals that the
Chinese authorities are intent on further cracking down on
communication methods that they cannot readily monitor,"
GreatFire.org said on its website.
Reuters was not able to contact CAC, which does not share
contact details, for immediate comment.
Last month, Google's Gmail email service was shut down in China
before resuming infrequent and heavily disrupted activity,
forcing many Chinese users to adopt domestic email systems.
(This story has been refiled to correct spelling of 'SMTP' in
paragraph 2)
(Reporting by Paul Carsten; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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