Pakistani hacker hits over 400 Chinese govt sites

A member from a Pakistani hacking group has breached and defaced more than 400 government sites in Xuchang City, China.

According to a report Thursday on IT security news site Hack Read, the hacker who goes by the name "Code Cracker" and is part of hacking group Pakistan Cyber Army, posted his groups' signature defacement image on the officia Web site of Xuchang City People's Procuratorate. He then repeated the move on several of the governmemnt's sub-domain sites, hitting 437 Web sites and Web pages. The list of affected sites was posted by the hackers on information-sharing site, PasteBin.

The Web site and its sub-domains since have been taken offline following the breach.

This was not the first time the Web site of Xuchang City People Procuratorate suffered a security breach. In September 2010, its government's Web site was defaced by an Indonesian hacker and was hacked again just last week on Nov. 29, the report noted.

Executives from McAfee previously told ZDNet Asia in an interview governments in Asia-Pacific should expect more hacktivist attacks in the near future. The region's evolving IT laws could lead to increased conflicts involving citizens whose response would be to turn to hacking instead of voicing their dissent.

Earlier this week, 17 Web sites under The People's Assocation, a Singapore government entity which promotes racial and social cohesion in the country, were also hacked and defaced by hackers.