A United Nations agency has been forced to close down part of its website after it was hacked into by a cyber vandal.

A link on the site of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), instead of showing a collection of laws for electronic access, displayed lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song under the caption "children of the darkstar".

"We have closed the site down," WIPO's assistant director general Geoffrey Yu told BBC News Online from Geneva, Switzerland, where the organisation is based, on Thursday.

'One of the better-known hackers'

"With more and more users visiting the site we have been wondering when someone would play a trick on us.

"We are probably going to keep it out of order for a few days."

Mr Yu said he had no idea who might have hacked into the site, but said WIPO's technical department believed it was "one of the better-known hackers".

A clue to the hacker's identity appeared at the bottom of the hacked page was signed off with the words "phiber says bye now".

Outwitting

WIPO is an inter-governmental organisation and is one of 16 specialised agencies affiliated to the UN.

It oversees the administration of various multi-lateral treaties regarding intellectual property such as trademarks and copyrights.

Illegally hacking into computer systems has grown with the expansion of the internet, and many hackers relish the challenge of outwitting the authorities.

Last week, the US state of California said teenage hackers stole thousands of internet accounts and used them to scan the networks of two national laboratories involved in the nuclear weapons programme.

Microsoft's e-mail service, Hotmail, was also hacked into last year.