Police Arrest 19 Year Old Hacker

Tuffcub 58 Comments

Scotland Yard have arrested a 19 year old hacker based in Wickford, Essex, following a series of hack attacks and denials of service.

Some sources are currently attributing the individual to hacking group LulzSec, who have also previously hacked Bethesda, Fox and the US Senate and used DDoS attacks on the servers of Minecraft and EVE online.

Scotland Yard, who would not confirm the arrest is related, have released the following statement:

“Officers from the Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) have arrested a 19-year-old man in a pre-planned intelligence-led operation.

The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group.

The teenager was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act, and Fraud Act offences and was taken to a central London police station, where he currently remains in custody for questioning.

Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing.

The PCeU was assisted by officers from Essex Police and have been working in co-operation with the FBI.”

There has also been unconfirmed reports that LulzSec have manged to steal the entire UK Census database, although this is purely based on a Pastebin drop rather than anything official from the group.

If true, the repercussions could be enormous.

Sources: Metropolitan Police, BBC.

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58 Comments

  1. Hackers need to realise there’s a real world too, where you can get arrested.

    • Anyone helping DoS using LOIC & the like too.

  2. Lulz :P

  3. Census database?
    Perhaps that will bring in stricter laws against hackers…

  4. Love the idea of the FBI working with Essex Police xD

    • Well, the only was ‘is’ Essex doncha know!

    • “Hello, you must be the FBI agent; would you like a cup of tea?”

  5. The census database was stolen? If that’s true and one of them is caught, well then, they’ll be digging themselves out of a LOT of horse manure.

    • This is the UK though, known for it’s “slap on the wrist” attitude with such crimes. Attempting to hack the CIA though, well that’s “wave goodbye while we put this black bag over your head”.

      • Well I’m in Ireland, which as far as I can tell, tend to be just as leinent as well. Still, any members of this lot who’re in the US will probably ‘disappear’ once they get found out.

      • If the FBI are involved I doubt there will be any sort of British slap on the wrists mentality going down, especially if the census is concerned. Even though not America, the FBI will want to make an example so it doesn’t happen there, I imagine.

      • Well, that in itself, is a valid point.

  6. Now what happens to Network neutrality? I’m sure the governments will use this event to restrict freedom right?

    • they’ll use it as an excuse to do what they’ve been wanting to do for ages, to be accurate. ^_^

      • Sadly. What’s even worse is this is probably some kid who ran the LoiC program without going through proxies, which would make this possibly the easiest arrest in history. I call shenanigans tbh; we’re all so afraid of ‘hackers’ thanks to the press that I’m expecting a false-flag attack (fake or real) for legislative purposes, & I’d say the theft of census data would qualify. There’s no way a sane person would have the entire census on a machine hooked up to the internet, and if it was then your complaint should be with the government and those responsible for the security of the data. Everyone was so quick to blame Sony when they got hacked; it’s funny how the blame game works when it’s those responsible for running a country that are at fault.

        /rant

        I need to stop commenting just after finishing work.

  7. That reminds me…. must fill in census form…

    • I think you are too late. A fine will be coming your way soon lol

  8. The person from Anonymous who hacked Anonymous (and then had his details placed on the web) was from Wickford… so maybe he jumped ship… seems strange that the UK hacking centre is Wickford!!!

    • lol….. never heard of it

    • I found an interesting fact about Wickford kind of relevant LOL
      From the the wiki page

      New prison development

      Under plans by the Labour government’s Justice Minister Jack Straw, land near the Runwell Hospital mental institute would be redeveloped into a prison capable of accommodating up to 1,500 inmates which is scheduled to open as early as 2013,[9] with possible plans for an American-style Supermax jail with a capacity of 2,500.[10]

  9. Scotland yard need to be careful, look what happened to the spanish police…

    • Doubtful that’ll happen. That was anon when threeof their members were nabbed. Thius pillock, however, is one of a number of people who’ve hacked several coporate websites, leaked the personal details of god knows how many people, and possibly have the wholoe UK Census databse in their back pocket. If anon do try to defend these pillocks, they’re defending the indefensible.

  10. Wow, the Census database, sort of dwarfs Geohot, Sony and the PSN when you think about it.

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