A 17-year-old schoolboy from Sri Lanka's central provincial town of Kadugannawa was on Monday arrested on charges that he had hacked into President Maithripala Sirisena's official website.

The arrest was made following a complaint by the presidential media division, police said.

The website was hacked two days in a row, on Thursday and Friday. The website went offline after the second attack.

Soon after the incident, the CID was tasked with carrying out the investigation with the assistance of the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team, local media reported.

Presidential media officials said the first attack occurred on Thursday evening, when hackers attacked the site and posted a message in Sinhala.

In the message, the group, who called themselves the 'SriLankan Youth', requested Sirisena to reconsider the decision to hold the GCE Advanced Level Examination in April as it coincides with the Sinhala and Hindu New Year.

They urged the government to be more careful about cybersecurity and advised the president to hold a snap election.

The other demands were to stop the 'irresponsible conduct' of the Prime Minister and to be more attentive to the problems faced by university students.