Official Syrian sites hacked by Anonymous

The official websites of seven major Syrian cities and several government departments have been hacked, as the country's government continues an extensive crackdown on anti-government protesters in the province of Homs and elsewhere.

According to the Hurriyet Daily News, London-based rights group reported the deaths of four people in the crackdown on Sunday.

According to Al Jazeera, the websites for the cities of Homs, Aleppo, Latakia, Damascus, Tartous, Deir Ezzor and Palmyra were hacked by members of the Anonymous Operation Syria group on Sunday, with the home pages replaced by an interactive map of Syria showing data on those killed in the government's crackdown.

The map showed the names, ages and dates of death of those killed since the uprising began in March, putting the death toll at 2,316.

The websites have since been reset by their administrators, with each now only displaying a generic page.

Several other websites, including those of the ministry of transportation and the department of antiquities and museums, were also hacked.

The hacked versions of the webpages included a link to a site advising activists within Syria on how to maintain anonymity on the Internet in order to evade government tracking.