A popular Russian tabloid's website came under the attack of hackers, who destroyed the site's entire contents, including the editorial interface and all of the daily's archives, the editor-in-chief said.

Pavel Gusev said the hackers required only 10 minutes to obliterate Moskovsky Komsomolets' website late on Thursday night.

"When our employees noticed what was going on, they shut the system down, but it was already too late," Gusev was quoted by the Kommersant business daily as saying on Friday.

He said the website has a security system, but the hackers were able to destroy it as well. Gusev said no one in particular has been accused of the attack, though the attack was identified as coming from servers in Korea.

The editor-in-chief did not express the damage done to the website in monetary figures, but said the tabloid suffered "serious damage."

MOSCOW, December 4 (RIA Novosti)