Sunday, July 11, 2010

An official website belonging to the Punjab Police of Pakistan was hacked on Friday, a private TV channel reported. The hackers left a message on the homepage in which they asked the Pakistani government to “stop proxy war against India.” The messages of the chief minister and provincial inspector general were also erased from the site.

Although the hackers have not been identified, Pakistani sources say the slogan left on the site points to Indian origins; cyber security experts confirmed this and added that 150 Pakistani websites were hacked in the last three days. The Punjab police website has been hacked twice recently; in one incident, the official emblem was replaced with the logo of the Indian Punjab Police.

A police spokesman stated they would take legal action against an Islamabad-based company responsible for the website’s security as well as stop the use of its services from July 31. “We are also going to give the domain hosting of the website and its maintenance, including the data update to the Punjab Information Technology Board.” The website has temporarily been shut down.