Updated, 12:17

THE WEBSITE of the watchdog regulating appointments in the public service has been carrying an advertisement for a women’s lingerie site.

The Commission for Public Service Appointment’s site has included a link to a British online store selling ‘Sexy Girls Lingerie’.

The link appeared at the bottom of the commission’s homepage in both the English and Irish languages.

A spokesman for the commission said it was unaware of the presence of the link when contacted by TheJournal.ie this morning.

The link to the website can be seen here at the foot of the CPSA’s website.

He added, however, that the commission was aware that its site had been compromised in recent days.

It was not clear, however, how long the link had been in place for. The link was removed shortly after the original publication of this piece.

The spokesman said the commission was in the process of developing a new website, with a common design to those of the Office of the Ombudsman and the Standards in Public Office Commission, as those offices were combining under the remit of the Ombudsman.

Hackers looking to compromise websites often insert links to other sites in those of more authoritative websites, hoping to improve the ranking of the other site in search engines like Google.

(Hat tip to reader Patrick FitzGerald.)

Last year: Government websites taken offline in Anonymous #OpIreland attack