British Bank HSBC Web Site Vandalized

L O N D O N, Sept. 21 -- A computer vandal has attacked several Web site pages of the London-based British bank HSBC, which announced the defacement on Wednesday and assured its customers their records were secure.

The vandal posted a picture of Prime Minister Tony Blair on thebank’s British home page alongside a statement supporting therecent crippling fuel protests by truckers and others demandinglower fuel prices.

An HSBC spokesman said Wednesday that the violated Web site wasmaintained by a third-party company, which he refused to name.Online banking services, where customers can make transactions andaccess their accounts, are maintained by HSBC internally.

The spokesman said no transaction information was affected,though he confirmed that some of the bank’s Web pages in Greece andSpain had been violated.

The defacement is the latest in a series of Web page attacksthat have occurred.

On Sept. 13 OPEC’s Web site was defaced by an online vandalapparently upset about the worldwide attention being paid to theorganization over soaring oil prices. The defacement was a writtenstatement disparaging the Organization of Petroleum ExportingCountries.

A similar action was taken against OPEC’s Web site in June,according to attrition.org., a Web site that monitors and logsInternet vandalism.