China hit by Prime Cyber hit in its record

Internet users in China were met with sluggish response times early Sunday as the country's domain extension came under a "denial of service" attack.

The hit was the major of its kind ever in China, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a state agency that manages the .cn country domain.

It took place at around 2 a.m. Sunday, and then again at 4 a.m. The second hit was "long-lasting and large-scale," according to state media, which said that service was slowly being restored.

Official state media said the hit targeted websites with the .cn country domain, as well as the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.

Denial of service hits aren't technically "hacks," since they can be done without breaching into any systems. Typically, DoS hits overwhelm a website's servers by flooding them with requests.

That makes websites unreachable or unresponsive.

To bring down bigger sites, attackers will sometimes organize large numbers of infected computers to send requests all at once.

Chinese authorities closely regulate content and websites available to Internet users in the country. The limitations are extremely sophisticated, leading some to call it a second "Great Wall."

It's unclear whether the hit is related to political events in China; the government is also wrapping up the trial of former political kingpin Bo Xilai, foremost some Internet users in China to note the timing of the hit.