A hacker brought down Bedfordshire Police's website
A police website has been taken down after it was hacked by a programmer who published a cartoon and Muslim prayer to its site.
All the pages on Bedfordshire Police's site were replaced by an animated man carrying a Tunisian flag.
Underneath was a green symbol and a Muslim prayer written in Arabic.
Arfaoui Firas, whose website suggests he might be a 17-year-old computer programmer living in the US, claimed on the pages to have hacked the site.
Bedfordshire Police said they were aware of the incident and IT staff had taken the site down temporarily.
A spokeswoman said: "I am not technical but I am sure they will be able to restore the site and return it to normal operation soon."
Operations were not affected by the hacker, the spokeswoman added.
The hacker gave a website address on the hacked pages, which directed viewers to a games and films sales organisation.
The spokeswoman said: "The website is hosted externally, away from all other police systems so no personal or confidential data could have been obtained.
"Bedfordshire Police take security extremely seriously, which is why the website is hosted independently and outside all other IT systems."
A full investigation into how the hacking attack happened has been started.
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