Hackers replace Spanish Prime Minister with Mr. Bean on EU Site and Text on Iranian President's site with note about Michael Jackson and Neda

**Jenna** · 01-06-10, 08:01 PM

For Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, it was a global virtual black eye. Instead of seeing his photo on the new European Union site, launched this week as Spain took over the presidency, visitors were greeted by Rowan Atkinson's comic character of Mr. Bean.
And if you clicked over to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Web site, you'd see that hackers took him on, too.
The text on his site was replaced with a note remarking on the death of "my favorite singer Michael Jackson" and "my favorite voice Neda," the woman killed last year during protests over Iranian elections. It ended with a request that God smite Ahmadinejad and "my favorite dictator [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei in 2010."

"It's a pretty ugly proposition from a risk-management perspective," he said. "The site is being compromised, and not only that, but it can be used to compromise anyone visiting the site, which is far worse than any traditional protest."
Although it's unknown whether the sites were hacked merely to send a message or as a goof, McPherson said hackers could just have easily uploaded malware -- malicious software -- that would attack any visitor's computer.

More here: Mocking hacked politicians' sites? Joke could be on you - CNN.com