UTV Internet has updated its security systems following the defacement of its website by a hacker who placed images of Republican hunger strikers on the site.

Any of UTV's 35,000 Internet customers logging on to the website last Saturday were greeted by a full-page commemoration of the 1981 hunger strikes.

The defacement included images of all 10 hunger strikers and an extract from the diary of Bobby Sands.

The attack was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the hunger strikes.

UTV's all-Ireland Internet service provider was set up last year. About one-third of its customers, more than 10,000 people, live in the Republic.