It appears ACT chief minister John Stanhope’s website was the first scratching on Cup Day. Hackers crashed Stanhope’s site and the chief minister let out a howl of protest.

The site was back up today, including the infamous draft terror legislation, but the attack has shaken up ACT Government operatives, who smell a political motive. This email went out yesterday from the government’s IT provider, InTACT:

You may hear or see on the news that the Chief Minister’s website was hacked into sometime this morning and redirected. Given that this is a political site that than a “government” site, it is not hosted by InTACT but rather by a privately owned local ISP. Our security team is checking to ensure that the sites we host are not open to be exploited via the same vulnerability.

But when we checked this morning, access to the site’s media releases section was down. It appears the cure may be worse than the disease.