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Hacker Sabotaged Macao Government Website

The government of Macao, SAR (Special Administrative Region) released a press statement on March 3, 2008 to reveal a hack into the directory page of the Website of Macao's SAFP (Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau) on March 1, 2008, however, the Website resumed usual operation within hours of the same day.

The hacking attack, which remained for around four hours, occurred on the government's site www.gov.mo where a symbol of the crescent moon with a rose was displayed. The symbol displayed an inscription reading, "We love Mohammed." There was also a signature by the hacker who gave his e-mail address, as reported by Xinhuanet on March 3, 2008.

Information Technology Manager, Macao Inter-University Institute, Justin Wan Si-un, said that Macao Websites generally have low security systems since the place normally didn't experience hacking activities, as reported by Xinhuanet on March 3, 2008.

Si-un further said that important, secret information planned to upload in the scheduled real estate registry Website of the Legal Affairs Bureau has the possibility of being stolen, if the government fail to strengthen its Internet security.

In any case, the hacked site only contains public information, therefore, there isn't any possibility of leakage of the government's internal information, according to the SAR government's statement published in Xinhuanet. However, the Judiciary Police of Macao have started a probe into the incident.

The statement also suggested that the SAFP will carry out a security analysis of the state Websites and also enhances their online security, as reported by Xinhuanet.

According to news reports released in July 2007, there had been sabotage to the site of Thailand's Information and Communications Technology Ministry. The hacker had posted a smiling photo of Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's deposed Prime Minister, below Thailand flag with obnoxious messages accompanying it. The hacker had also posted a song on the site criticizing the government.

In a similar incident, Belgium's Defense Ministry Website became a target of a hacking attack by some Turkish nationalists, as reported by INTERNATIONAL Herald Tribune in the second week of January 2008. The hackers proclaimed themselves as "grandchildren of Ottoman Empire and Children of Turkey" had posted the English text defending the assassination of Armenians in Turkey during World War I while asserting that no Kurdish dispute existed in Turkey.

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