Hacker Alters Register’s Web Site

The Orange County Register on Tuesday said its Web site was infiltrated Sept. 29 and that an article was changed to say Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates had been arrested for breaking into NASA computers.

The story was about Jason Diekman’s arrest for breaking into Web sites at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Nancy Souza, spokeswoman for the paper.

Some sentences were changed, and Gates’ name was substituted for Diekman’s. One sentence claimed to name a confidential source used by prosecutors. It wasn’t the correct name, according to Inside.com, a Web-based media and entertainment news service that reported the hacking.

The Register, based in Santa Ana, is owned by closely held Freedom Communications Inc.

It’s the first time hackers have changed the content on the newspaper’s site, Souza said. The break-in was noticed and fixed in about 45 minutes. The newspaper has changed security procedures to put a so-called firewall around the entire server, Souza said.

Microsoft was unavailable to comment immediately.