Website breaches in Latvia

  • 2000-01-20
RIGA - Internet security breaches are not necessarily the stuff of
international intrigue and big-money schemes.

Sometimes, as some website operators around Riga know, hackers just
like to show off.

Local hackers broke into government websites, a popular men's
magazine and a school in recent weeks just to show it could be done.

It took government computer experts only about an hour to return the
Cabinet of Minister's website, the main government page, back to
normal after hackers left a warning last week.

"Fight against hackers is raging at its full," the site read before
being repaired. "All forces are mobilized - Latvia's best computer
experts are carefully following the slightest action in the Internet
space," the Baltic News Service reported.

The Cabinet of Ministers break-in was the first in a series of hacker attacks.

Websites belonging to the casino Admiral Club, the Slokas Elementary
School and Klubs magazine also reported break-ins.

Officials said this week that the government can't afford a beefed-up
security system until 2001.