BRIEFS: Security

Government website broken into

Provocation: A “cracker” identified as OWN3d JamZ broke into the Ministerio de Comercio e Industrias’s (Mici) website. 1060614

Soon after someone broke into the Asamblea Nacional's website last January and left a message for the legislative body's president, Pedro Miguel González, who has been indicted in the U.S. on murder charges, it became clear that the Panamanian government has failed to invest in adequate security.

That incident followed several others in which the websites of the Presidencia de la República, the Órgano Judicial and other important government offices were violated.

Now someone has penetrated the website of the Ministerio de Comercio e Industries (Mici) at www.mici.gob.pa.---again. In 2006, someone broke into the Mici's site and generated an ample batch of vulgar emails.

This time, visitors to site who might have been looking for statistics and reports on free trade negotiations were greeted instead with the message “Mexico is all over Panama” and a photo of the popular and prolific Mexican comedian, film actor, producer, writer and singer Cantinflas.

A spokesperson for the Mici said “the page was not hacked. Everything indicates that [the message] was some form of spam or virus, [which] hasn't violated, altered or erased our archives or computers.”

Technology experts make a distinction between “hackers,” who want to know how a system works from the inside in order to detect flaws so that it can be improved, and “crackers,” who violate security systems for personal gain or to do damage.