By Ilaina Jonas

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A computer hacking group claimed responsibility for defacing the Web sites of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and the Associated Press early on Wednesday, shutting down the AP site for more than an hour.

A hacker broke into the AP site at 2:19 a.m. and scrawled the word ``HFURY'' across the Web page, said Jack Stokes, AP spokesman. Sometime later a Wall Street Journal online reporter noticed the word and contacted the AP, which took the site down at about 4:30 a.m. The site was cleaned and restored to operations at about 6:10 a.m., he said.

``None of the editorial operations were affected,'' Stokes said. The 1,700 members of the newspaper collective receive their information via a private network.

Hfury claims to have 10 members, all from Brazil, according to their Web site. It offers programs used to create viruses, break into sites, hijack passwords, and other digital mischievous and often destructive online mayhem.

The hackers weren't so gentle with the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. There they not only left their group's name, but also scrawled obscene comments, skull and cross bones, and left their individual pseudonyms.

``It's deeply disturbing when this happens,'' said the organization's executive director, Robin Elliott. ``When an individual is diagnosed with Parkinson's and is in an emotional state, it's not what they want to see.''

Parkinson's is a slowly progressive disease that attacks the brain, which can cause tremors, stiffness of limbs, balance disorders and slowness of movement. It affects some 1.5 million Americans.

The organization discovered the vandalism at about 9 a.m. Wednesday.

This is the second time in a year that someone broke into the site, he said.

The group also said it defaced Anroc.com, a French public energy service company, but the company denied having any problems with their site.