Sri Lankan police social media accounts, government website hacked

The social media accounts of the Sri Lankan police and the official website of the government’s Printer Department were targeted by cyberattacks on Tuesday, according to officials.

“Our YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and X were hit by cyber-attacks. By now, we have restored all of them other than YouTube," said Police Spokesman and Superintendent K B Manathunga.

He added that the hackers had been identified, and investigations were ongoing.

In addition to the police social media accounts, the official website of the government's Printer Department was also hacked. The group behind the attack has yet to be identified, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a state agency.

The CERT said the website where all government publications, including key announcements, are published was breached.

“We can safely say that the website data had not been compromised, they have only added certain data,” Niroshan Ananda, a CERT spokesperson told reporters.