Japanese police revealed on Wednesday that at least 19 websites for government and public institutions were hit by cyber attacks originating from China. The National Police Agency says the websites for a government ministry, a hospital, courts, banks, and universities were taken offline, or in many cases altered to display messages that the Dioayu Islands were sovereign Chinese territory. Called the Senkaku Islands in Japan, the disputed territory was purchased by the Japanese government early last week, triggering the widespread, sometimes violent, protests throughout 100 Chinese cities.

The National Police Agency is also certain the cyber attacks originated from China because it confirmed that more than half of the affected websites were listed as targets on Chinese chat sites. The message boards for the Chinese “hacktivist” group Honker Union contained the names of nearly 300 Japanese organizations listed as potential targets, and roughly 4,000 people posted messages about coordinating attacks on the China’s leading chat site “YY Chat.”

Tatsuo Kawabata, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, says that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack was used on the statistics bureau. The attack was said to be the most intense on Sunday afternoon, when 95% of the website’s traffic was coming from China. No data or information was taken, however the Tokyo Institute of Technology says that the names and phone numbers of 1,068 people were leaked. Before the website could be shut down, it was also covered in images of the Chinese flag.

[via Globe and Mail]