Japan on alert for Chinese cyber attack

Japanese forces committed atrocities in China

The Japanese authorities are preparing for attacks on official government websites after a Chinese-language website called for concerted action in response to what it described as "historical insults".

The Chinese website, run by the little-known Hongke Federation, called for a campaign against Japanese sites after extensive reports in the Chinese media about a senior Japanese politician's apparent justification of his country's role in World War II.

The politician's comments came amid widespread concern in China that the Japanese government might allow the publication of history textbooks portraying Japan's militaristic past in a relatively favourable light.

A number of commercial companies and an academic institution have already been targeted by computer hackers critical of Japan's handling of historical issues with China.

Nanjing massacre

Condemnations of the Nanjing massacre - atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army against Chinese civilians in 1937 - were posted on the websites of several Japanese companies, including NTT West Corp.

Similar references to the massacre - during which some 300,000 people were killed - were posted on the website of Tama University in Tokyo.

The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that hackers had also succeeded in inserting a photo of severed human heads on the website of Seiko I Infotech Inc.

Fearing similar attacks on government sites, the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat has ordered all government agencies to step up security measures to protect their websites.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.