City staff woke up to an anti-globalization message Tuesday after a hacker cracked the city's computer system. A log-in page for staff accessing e-mail from home was replaced with an anti-G-8 message, said Greg Geddes, director of information technology services.
"Basically, somebody managed to find a way to get in there," he said.
The message comes on the heels of warnings from activists who have organized a "Take Back the Capital" protest to coincide with the G-8 meeting in Alberta later this month. The message protested the G-8 meetings.
City staff shut down the system yesterday morning and had the problem fixed within an hour. Although the system is difficult to breach, Geddes said it isn't invincible.
"Like any organization using the Internet, you constantly have people spending a lot of energy trying to break into your site and eventually they find a door you haven't closed."
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.