Floor debate on hacking

A debate arose on the National Assembly floor Monday as over 10 lawmakers found that some data on their computer homepages had been suddenly erased.

Rep. Won Hee-Ryong insisted that the homepages of some assemblymen hooked up on the server provided by the National Assembly computer center had suffered a loss of data at the hands of outside hackers from 5-7 a.m. Sunday.

The assault by a professional hacker destroyed the information on his homepage as well as that of Democratic Assemblyman Kim Hyo-Seuk, who recently staged a public demonstration on the hacking menace, Won said.

The National Assembly secretariat, however, admitted that data had been lost but denied any invasion by hackers. Officials said that errors committed by computer center technicians caused some damage to the homepages in the course of repairs to the computer network.