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HARRISBURG | - The official Pennsylvania Web site and the Web pages of several state agencies were taken offline Friday after hackers in China infiltrated them. But state officials said they don't believe any sensitive information was compromised.

The Rendell administration learned about 10 a.m. that a virus had infected the Internet site. Agencies affected by the attack were the departments of Education, Labor and Industry, and Military and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Pennsylvania Lottery.

The hackers detected a vulnerability in a media player package and used that to get into the system, said Mia DeVane, a spokeswoman for the Office of Administration. ''When there's a hack, they get in through a back door,'' she said.

DeVane said the state needed to take down the sites ''to make sure a virus couldn't spread.''

Information technology employees located the source of the attack, she said. ''Our IT security experts…looked at the network domain, which came out of China.''

Officials found no damage to personal computers and were continuing to investigate, DeVane said. ''At this point, we believe our anti-virus software prevented any PCs from being taken over,'' she said.

By late afternoon Friday, access to several state sites had been restored. But before that, visitors to the official state Web site (www.state.pa.us) received this message: ''The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Web site that you are trying to reach is either not available or is undergoing maintenance. Please try back later. Thank you for your patience.''

DeVane said state Web sites unaffected by the attack also were taken down as a precaution. They included the Department of Agriculture, which provides information on the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show that starts today.

DeVane said the state routinely fends off such attacks. In October, state officials were recognized by a national IT officers' group for their computer security efforts.

''This is something that we fight every day,'' DeVane said. ''Viruses are a constant issue. We fight them off every day, and it's successful.''

The hacker attack appeared limited to executive branch sites only. Web sites maintained by the Legislature were not affected, said representatives of all four caucuses.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.