Teenager hacks president's website to get exams delayed

When it comes to exams, we've all skipped revision and then prayed that the ground swallows us up or the school burns down.

One 17-year-old in Sri Lanka took this a step further and hacked into the president's website and posted a message calling for the postponement of A-level exams, Colombo Page reported.

A message posted on the site, signed by a group calling itself the Sri Lanka Youth, complained that the exams clashed with New Year celebrations.

The unnamed boy was arrested on Monday under the Computer Crimes Act and faces a fine of 300,000 rupees (£1,563) and up to three years in jail.

A police official said that they traced the hack back to the teenager's home in Kadugannawa and that the website of President Maithripala Sirisena was "crippled" from the attack.

The hacker removed the website's homepage and replaced it with a demand that the president postpone the exams or step down.

A second suspect, a 27-year-old man, was arrested on Tuesday. It is the first time in Sri Lanka that a teenager has been arrested for hacking and certainly makes our attempts to skip exams - fake illnesses and the like - look meek.

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