Scotland Yard arrests 2 suspected Anonymous, LulzSec hackers
Two alleged members of the hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec, one believed to be a hacker going by the alias of Kayla, have been arrested in England.
The two unidentified men, ages 20 and 24, were arrested separately Thursday — one in South Yorkshire county and the other in Wiltshire county — on suspicion of “conspiring to commit offenses under the Computer Misuse Act 1990,” according to the Metropolitan Police Service, also known as Scotland Yard.
The arrests “are part of an ongoing investigation in collaboration with the FBI, South Yorkshire police and other law enforcement bodies in the UK and overseas, into the activities of the online ‘hacktivist’ groups Anonymous and LulzSec — in particular in connection with suspected offenses conducted under the cover of the online identity ‘Kayla,’ ” Scotland Yard said in a statement.
Police confiscated the computer of the man arrested in South Yorkshire for “forensic examination,” Scotland Yard said.
“The arrests relate to our inquiries into a series of serious computer intrusions and online denial-of-service attacks recently suffered by a number of multinational companies, public institutions and government and law enforcement agencies in Great Britain and the United States,” Mark Raymond, a detective from the Metropolitan Police e-Crime Unit, said in a statement. “We are working to detect and bring before the courts those responsible for these offenses, to disrupt such groups and to deter others thinking of participating in this type of criminal activity.”
The Guardian newspaper of London was among the first to report on the arrests.
In July, Scotland Yard arrested 18-year-old Jake Davis, who allegedly acted as a spokesman for Anonymous and LulzSec, going by the name Topiary.
Davis has been released on bail and has been forbidden from accessing the Internet while he faces charges for five criminal offenses, the police agency has said.
