Obama's web site gets defaced with fake anti-government events

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign web site was defaced with a number of anti-government slurs, but his political campaign team claims the web site was not hacked.

One "Commy Obama" posted two fake events to be held at noon on Tuesday in Washington entitled "Rules of Politics", along with a 430-word message listing 21 criticisms against governments in general.

These included "politicans and other public servants lie", "politicans tell you what you want to hear and offer to provide things for 'free' to get votes", and "when government buys, the people pay".

None of the criticisms directly referenced Obama or any other politician, but the fact that that they are on his re-election web site suggests the individual or individuals behind this do not want people to vote for him. It might also be the case that there are further plans to deface many candidates' web sites in the run up to the 2012 election.

Ben LaBolt, an adviser for the Obama campaign, told The Washington Examiner that the web site had not been compromised and that the fake events were posted through a calendar feature that users can edit. They have since been removed.

While the overall security of the web site might remain intact, if the calendar feature allows anyone to post events then there's a major flaw, it would seem, as unscrupulous individuals can simply keep posting fake events, along with disparaging comments. Obama's team might be forced to disable user submissions to the calendar if it becomes increasingly problematic.

This latest attack follows the hacking of Fox News' Twitter account on Monday, where a fake report of the assassination of Obama was posted. The Secret Service announced that it is investigating this incident, and while the defacement of Obama's web site is a much less serious affair, we wouldn't be surprised if it is looking into that too. µ