By Yun Suh-young

The English website of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance was hacked Tuesday afternoon and the police are now investigating the cause.

At around 6 p.m. Tuesday a banner stating “We support MBC’s strike” was posted on the ministry’s English webpage in the section where government policies are introduced.

The banner design was a mouse holding up a lantern with the G20 logo on it which caused a stir when it was first seen in 2010. The mouse, which is parody of President Lee Myung-bak, had been drawn on street posters for the G20 summit in central Seoul. The person who drew the mouse on the banners was fined 2 million won for damaging public property.

The police are now investigating the log records of the homepage. The cause of the hacking is not yet known.

“We began our investigation after receiving a report from the ministry that there was a weird posting on their website. We have dispatched two members from the cyber crime investigative team from the Daejeon Metropolitan Police Agency to the center which comprehensively manages the servers,” said an official from the police.

Some presume the cause of the hacking to be a response to a recent move by the government to privatize Incheon International Airport. The finance ministry announced that it will push ahead with selling off the airport Tuesday morning, the day when the website was hacked.