Denver officials have asked the FBI, Denver police and Microsoft Corp. to help them identify the person or people who have hacked into the city's website twice in the past week.
Dave Joly, an FBI spokesman, confirmed a felony criminal investigation has begun. Conviction of what the FBI terms a "defacement" of the Denver Web page could carry between one and five years in prison, depending on the particulars.

Joly said the FBI has not been notified of any other similar attacks on municipal websites in Colorado.

The hacker did not get beyond the public Denvergov.org website to access any internal files that may contain sensitive information, but officials want to determine how the website is getting hacked so they can ensure it doesn't happen again, said Eric Brown, a spokesman for Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

"The security system in place is very good and thwarts nearly every attack," Brown said Tuesday. "Last week and last night, someone was able to get through the first layer."

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