Suspected Chinese hackers shut down retailer’s website while nationalist newspaper attacks in editorials
A South Korean conglomerate has landed itself in hot water in China after it agreed to provide land to host a US-backed missile shield system that Beijing has labelled a strategic threat to its national security. Lotte Group, the fifth largest conglomerate in South Korea, said on Wednesday that its Chinese website has suffered a disruption that could be a cyberattack by unidentified Chinese hackers, South Korea’s news agency Yonhap reported. Attempts to visit Lotte’s Chinese website have failed since Tuesday afternoon, meeting only a message saying that the server could not find the web page. A Lotte official told Yonhap that the disruption was caused by a virus planted by hackers, citing analysis by computer security experts. The Asian retail giant said last month that it had closed three retail stores in China. It also faced a series of regulatory investigations into its operations in China late last year. On Monday, after it announced its decision, Lotte said that it was concerned about further business fallout caused by the tensions between the two nations. The website breakdown occurred amid surging tension between China and South Korea in recent days after Lotte’s board agreed to sell its golf course in the southeast rural county of Seongju to South Korea’s military to host the US-backed Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) system, which South Korea said was necessary to protect itself from a heightened missile threat from North Korea.
