Hackers deface Fine Gael website

9 Jan 2011

Political party Fine Gael has had its website hacked by a mysterious group calling itself ‘Anonymous’ and appears to be from individuals rankled by alleged censorship issues.

The main image on the page that seems to have replaced the Finegael.ie pages consists of a man in a suit without a head and the words ‘Anonymous’ emblazoned above the logo. In brackets at the bottom of the page, it says it is owned by Raepsauce and Palladium.

Beneath it reads the following: “Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP!”

Following the arrest of WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, hackers have embraced ‘hactivism’ as a way of getting their point across. Most attacks tend to be SEO denial attacks. In this case, the vandals were able to hack into the server and put up their own image.

Ahead of forthcoming elections in Ireland it will be interesting to see if other political parties find their sites compromised by hactivists.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com