17-year-old teenager hacked into President Maithripala Sirisena´s official website
COLOMBO:Sri Lanka´s police Monday arrested a 17-year-old teenager for hacking into President Maithripala Sirisena´s official website and posting a message calling for the postponement of A-level examinations.
The unnamed boy was taken into custody under the Computer Crimes Act and on conviction faces a fine of 300,000 rupees ($2,000) and up to three years in jail.
"We traced the hack to his home in Kadugannawa," a police official said referring to a town about 100 kilometres (62 miles) east of the capital Colombo. "The website was crippled over the weekend after the attack."
On Monday, the president´s official site was up and running again.
The attacker had removed the home page of the website and replaced it with a demand that the President postpone the ongoing GCE Advanced Level examinations or step down.
Sri Lankan websites had been hacked in the past, but this was the first time that a teenager had been arrested under the Computer Crimes Act of 2007.