Thread: 16 Arrested in the United States for Cyber Attacks

FBI Raids Homes, Seizes Computers in Hacking Probe

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 19, 2011 at 12:52 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI has raided several New York homes during a probe into the hacker group Anonymous.

FBI spokesman Jim Margolin says agents searched residences and seized computers at one address in Brooklyn and three on Long Island. He declined further comment. The targets of the searches were not named. The raids were first reported by FoxNews.com.

Anonymous is an amorphous, loosely organized group of hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks. It has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against corporate and government websites around the world.

The group claims credit for disrupting the websites of Visa and Mastercard in December when the credit card companies stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.

It is known for attacks on the Church of Scientology and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/07 ... l?_r=1&hpw

Related Thread Here
FBI Raids Homes of Suspected Anonymous Hackers
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-244031-anonymous.html

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Sixteen Individuals Arrested in the United States for Alleged Roles in Cyber Attacks

More Than 35 Search Warrants Executed in United States, Five Arrests in Europe as Part of Ongoing Cyber Investigations

WASHINGTON - Fourteen individuals were arrested today by FBI agents on charges related to their alleged involvement in a cyber attack on PayPal’s website as part of an action claimed by the group “Anonymous,â€

There seems to be members of these hacker groups in countries all over the world.

19 July 2011 Last updated at 19:18 ET

Police arrest 'hackers' in US, UK, Netherlands

Anonymous rose to fame attacking the Church of Scientology and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons

Police in the US, Britain and the Netherlands have detained more than 20 people as part of an investigation into major cyber attacks.

Most of the arrests were in the US, where the FBI said 16 people had been held for alleged computer hacking.

Fourteen of them were suspected of an online attack on PayPal, claimed by hacking group Anonymous, said the FBI.

In Britain, a teenager was arrested in London, while four other suspects were detained by police in the Netherlands.

Wikileaks 'revenge'

The US indictment against 14 of those arrested on suspicion of December's attack on PayPal said it had been "retribution" for the site closing a donation account for the whistleblowing website Wikileaks.

The PayPal attack suspects were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio, US officials said in a statement.

Investigators believe Anonymous is mostly made up of hackers in their teens and early 20s.

The other two US suspects were held under separate indictments but similar charges in Florida and New Jersey.

In the UK, Scotland Yard told the BBC that it had arrested a 16-year-old boy in south London on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

"The Metropolitan Police is liaising with the FBI and indeed with our Dutch colleagues," a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

As well as attacking PayPal, Anonymous also temporarily shut down MasterCard and Visa last December, after they froze Wikileaks accounts.

Anonymous targeted Amazon, too, after it removed Wikileaks content from one of its servers, but that attack was not successful.

The hacking group has used a technique known as a distributed denial of service (DDoS) in an attempt to take the sites offline.

DDoS attacks bombard a website with data until it cannot respond, rendering it inaccessible.

Anonymous rose to fame with a series of attacks on websites linked to the Church of Scientology and Gene Simmons, bassist with the rock group Kiss.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14212110

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