Global internet traffic, including that of the US government and the military, was reportedly “hijacked” in April, which saw it being redirected through computer servers in China.
According to a draft of a report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China Telecom published instructions under the Border Gateway Protocol that instructed the US and other internet traffic worldwide to travel through Chinese services.
It lasted for 18 minutes, “hijacking” 15pc of the world’s online traffic and affected NASA, the US Senate, the military and the office of the Secretary of Defense.
Tech companies, such as Dell, Microsoft, IBM and Yahoo! were also allegedly affected.
The report states that the traffic should have travelled by the shortest available route and not through China.
It was unclear as to whether or not this reroute was intentional or if any data was collected.
China Telecom has denied these accusations. The report should be made public later today.
