Initial investigation by the China Internet Network Emergency Center says that Tuesday's websites failure was a result of cyber attack, which is yet to be identified.
Around 3 p.m. on Tuesday, a number of China’s top-level websites went down. Attempts to visit many Chinese websites failed, with netizens receiving error messages and being redirected to a US-based IP address.
The state-run China Internet Network Information Center says the problem, which lasted for several hours, was due to malfunction of root servers for China’s top-level domain names.
Meanwhile Qihoo 360 says there have been no reports of any personal information leaks.