Chinese human rights Web site comes under attack

A Chinese government Web site set up to improve the authority's human rights image has been invaded by hackers who replaced the original content with protests about the abuse of citizens.

The site was live for only one week before hackers penetrated its security precautions and posted angry protestations and links to human rights Web sites - including Amnesty International.

The Web site - which can be found at www.humanrights-china.org - was quickly restored to its original format. But the hacker group, calling itself the Bronc Buster, said the invasion had taken just two minutes.

Ashim Pal, an analyst at the Meta Group, said that the speed of the attack didn't surprise him, even though it was on a supposedly secure government site.

He added that almost 60 per cent of companies don't even take the most basic of precautions to secure their Web sites, so in the unlikely event of an attack, most hackers usually succeed.