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. THROW. AWAY. THE. KEY.

    • Yes its important to throw away the key.

      Throw the first key into the sea of hate…
      [Solo: Mike/Kai]
      throw the second key into the sea of fear
      throw the third key into the sea of senselessness
      and make the people hold each other’s hands
      the fourth key belongs into the sea of greed
      and the fifth into the sea of ignorance
      Disease, disease, disease my friend
      for this whole world’s in devil’s hand
      Disease, disease, disease my friend
      throw the key or you may die

      [Solo: Kai/Mike/Kai/Mike]

      Sorry for the utter sillyness…. *laughs

  2. Odd, though, how none of the companies hacked since the PSN event have faced anything like the venom that Sony endured, despite several losing almost identical data – and in some cases, potentially far more dangerous info as well.

    • Good point Now you mention it.

      • I was gonna say this before along with some comment along the lines of Sony waiting for an appology but I was hungry and couldn’t be bothered to compile the sentence. But you’re right, and I think now it’s become so commonplace people will probably feel a tad silly for ridiculing Sony so much, and Sony will now probably feel a bit more secure in their reputation again with other big companies being successfully hit.

      • But I said exactly this multiple times when everyone was overreacting so much with the Sony hack. Some boffin figured a way in, not sonys fault, could happen to anyone. And oh look, it has happened to everyone!

      • Same same tony, there wasn’t a single related thread were dozens of people weren’t being ‘outraged’ at Sony for being so ‘incompetent’.

        Extreme reaction was extreme.

  3. So anyone in Essex know Ryan Cleary?

  4. I’m just up the road from Wickford. Would be nice to bumb into this guy one day, although I don’t have a clue what he looks like and I guess doesn’t wear an ‘I am a Hacker’ t-shirt…… Still would be nice.

  5. justice. ^_^

  6. Just for an update Lulzsec have just tweeted that they are not behind the Census hack.

    • Yeah, I read that too. There’s loads of these groups round these days, it seems.

    • Or they got scared and now deny everything. Why should we believe anything they tweet?

  7. I’m sure the picture sums up how the 19 year old felt when he was greeted by 15 burly men at his front (and back) door!

  8. Very good :) He had his “lulz”, now it’s time to face the consequences. Maybe he’ll even learn to think before acting.

  9. Bring back firing squads!!

  10. LulzSec has apparently said that the 19 year old that was arrested, barely played a part in LulzSec apart from just running the IRC channel. Getting the guy that runs that though could probably give the police or whoever enough information on them. Plus the census database announcement was made by a member that supposedly isn’t in LulzSec.

    • It’s doubtful; I think these guys are security-conscious enough to cover they operational tracks, certainly in something like an IRC chat room. This is just a token arrest.

      • Anytime any of these net-terrorists are arrested the rest always disown them and claim they’re minor player and dismiss their contribution. It reminds me of:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs

        They’re not exactly going to come out and say “Fuck, this is a huge issue for us, this bloke was a major player” are they?

      • True; but in an organisation such as Anon / Lulsec, there is no major player. You can’t cut the head off’ve a nest of ants.

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