Kadugannawa schoolboy arrested over President’s website hack

A seventeen-year-old schoolboy from Kadugannawa was arrested this afternoon, for engineering the hack on President Maithripala Sirisena’s website.

President Sirisena’s official website www.president.gov.lk came under attack on Friday (26), when the site was taken down and a message posted in Sinhalese, expressing the displeasure of a collective of hackers calling themselves ‘The Sri Lanka Youth’, at the government having scheduled the Advanced Level examination for April, during the traditional Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

The message was removed shorty thereafter and a message notifying users that the site would down for ‘scheduled maintenance', put up instead. 

The President’s website was back online a few hours later.

The site was hacked once again the next day (Saturday, 27), with the following message posted in English:

Dear Mr. President,

We are extremely displeased about the decision to hold GCE A/L in April since the Sinhala/Hindu New Year falls in between the exam dates. Therefore, reconsider that decision. Furthermore, take care of the security of Sri Lankan websites. Or else, we will have to face a cyber war.

If you cannot control the situation hold a Presidential Election.

Stop the Prime Minister's irresponsible work.

Look more into the problems of the university students.

The Sri Lankan Youth

The Crimes Investigation Department (CID) made the arrest.