Web Page of Chilean Presidency Hacked

A hacker hacked the Web page of Chile's Presidency and placed the flag of the neighboring country Peru. As per Associated Press (AP), the site was disabled for 18 hours, but now it is operating as well as functioning well.

The message was left by the intruder around midday on November 4, 2007 with a message-"Long Live Peru" with an expletive and a flag. After few minutes, the authorities started working on the site by making it inoperable and leaving a message which says that they intend to provide an undisturbed service, so they are working on it.

The hacked web page was carrying some information about the President Michelle Bachelet's activities and the emerging Ibero American Summit for leaders from Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Interestingly, Political Director of the Chilean foreign ministry, Carlos Portales, said that the incident doesn't seem to have any association with the summit.

According to theinquirer.net on November 6, 2007, Carlos ensured that incident is still under investigation. He also expressed that it was not a particular anonymity with Chile as other web pages, like from the US govt., the Vatican, have also faced the same.

As per the officials, the hacker was probably a Peruvian which was clear enough as he planted his country's flag on the Chilean presidency site. Peru and Chile had been friends before the two wars in 19th century and a conflict over the maritime boundaries.

In July 2007, a similar kind of incident has occurred with the official Website of Peruvian President. The site of Peruvian president was sabotaged by a hacker, replacing the picture of President Alan Garcia with that of the father of Chilean independence. The image of Chilean leader Bernardo O'Higgins (1778-1842) appeared in the Garcia's stead on the site.

In November 2006, the Chilean police had caught four suspected computer hackers, charged for being a member of an international group that had hacked several govt. PCs nationwide in recent years. The group was accused for hacking almost 8,000 sites which included some operated by the govt. of Bolivia, the US, Argentina, Turkey, Venezuela, Peru and Columbia.

Related article: Web Browsers Too Have Security Exploits

» SPAMfighter News - 11/21/2007