Cyberattacks against Occupy Central poll traced to mainland firms’ computers in Hong Kong

Up to 40 per cent of cyberattacks on the website used to run Occupy Central's unofficial plebiscite on electoral reform came from computers registered to mainland firms in Hong Kong, said an IT expert who advised the poll's organisers.

But it was possible the firms were unaware their computers were involved, as they may have been controlled by hackers, said Young Wo-sang, convenor of the Internet Society of Hong Kong's security and privacy working group.

Dr Chan Kin-man, a key organiser of the civil disobedience movement - which has vowed to blockade Central if the government fails to offer a satisfactory reform proposal - said the findings had fuelled Hongkongers' worries that Beijing was the ultimate hacker of the system.

The 10-day so-called referendum, allowing Hongkongers to pick their preferred reform proposal from a shortlist of three, faced over 10 billion distributed denial-of-service attacks shortly after it launched for pre-registration on June 13, knocking the system offline for periods.

Young said many attacks appeared to have come from computers in Hong Kong registered to mainland firms. "After tracing the IP addresses, we have found that 30 to 40 per cent of them were registered by mainland enterprises," he said.

Cyberattack on Occupy Central poll is 'most sophisticated onslaught ever seen'

Young has been advising the University of Hong Kong's public opinion programme - commissioned by Occupy to handle the poll - on security. He said the poll team had passed its information to police and urged them to locate the real culprit.