Chinese hack screens at 2 airports in Vietnam

Flight display screens at Vietnam’s two largest airports were hacked allegedly by Chinese hackers with messages criticising Vietnam’s claims over the disputed South China Sea being displayed, in an apparent retaliation to vulgar scribbling on a Chinese woman tourist’s passport.

Screens and sound systems at Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City airports broadcasted anti-Vietnamese and anti-Philippines slogans on Friday taking the Vietnamese officials by surprise.

Vietnam’s transport ministry said a Chinese hacker was responsible, BBC reported. Vietnam Airlines’ website was also briefly hacked.

Media in Vietnam reported that staff at the airports had to resort to checking in passengers manually, avoiding computers for several hours. The hack comes days after a row involving a Chinese tourist at one of the hacked airports — Tan Son Nhat, in Ho Chi Minh City.

A Chinese woman tourist — surnamed Zhong from Guangdong province — has complained that she found an obscenities written on the two pages of her passport depicting China’s nine-dash line which signified Beijing’s claims over the disputed South China Sea.

An international tribunal has struck down China’s claims over the area based on historic rights and upheld the Philippines’ claims over the area. China has rejected the verdict.

Besides the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the area.

The issue of scribbling on the Chinese tourist’s passport was the first major incident between Vietnam and China after the verdict was delivered on July 12.

China asked Vietnam to investigate reports that the Chinese visitor’s passport was handed back with obscenities written on two pages.

Customs officers at Vietnam’s Da Nang airport, not one of those hacked on Friday, have reportedly also confiscated maps featuring the nine-dash line from Chinese passengers, the report said.

A provincial Vietnamese television station stopped airing Shanghai Bund, a Chinese remake of a Hong Kong series, after the show’s lead actor voiced his support for Beijing’s claims over the South China Sea.