'LulzSec suspect' arrested by New Scotland Yard

New Scotland Yard has confirmed that it has arrested a 19-year old suspected hacker in Essex, UK, in connection with a series of hacks and denial-of-service attacks against a number of organisations.
It is being widely speculated that the arrest is in connection with the high-profile attacks by the LulzSec hacking group, which has claimed amongst its victims Sony, the CIA, the FBI, and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
Officers from the Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) arrested the man last night at approximately 10:30pm, on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act, and searched a house in Wickford, Essex, where they seized computer equipment which will undergo forensic examination.
The FBI and local Essex police worked in co-operation with the PCeU to investigate the case. The arrested man, who has been named as Ryan Cleary in many media reports, has been taken to a London police station for questioning.
It's important to note at this point that it has not been confirmed that the arrested man is suspected by the authorities of being involved with LulzSec. But many observers are speculating that that could be the case.

The controversial LulzSec group have been playing a dangerous game as they targeted "big players" such as the crime-fighting agencies around the world. Inevitably the authorities were not going to take kindly to that, and would put man-power to work seeking out intelligence as to who could be involved.
Seemingly drunk with the popularity of their Twitter account (which has more than 220,000 followers) they have becoming increasingly vocal in the messages they have made public, and embarrassed computer crime authorities and large organisations around the world with their attacks.
One had to wonder if all of this bragging could lead to the group's downfall. It would, after all, be hard to keep a secret from friends and peers if you were a member of LulzSec.
There has been much speculation recently regarding who might be behind LulzSec - if the police believe that they have cracked the group then a strong messaage will be sent to others considering engaging in illegal acts such as malicious hacking and denial-of-service attacks.
It will be interesting to see if LulzSec's Twitter account is updated, or has anything more to say about the arrest. Will it be a case of "who lulz last, laughs longest?"


http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/06/21/lulzsec-suspect-arrested-scotland-yard/

Anonymous Declares War on Sony

In Sony’s effort to pursue George “GeoHot” Hotz and other Playstation hackers to the ends of the earth (literally), they’ve poked the sleeping giant of Anonymous, the 4chan based hivemind who under the guise of “freedom of information” has now officially declared war on Sony, and has launched attacks ranging from bringing down their websites (and possibly the PSN) to publishing personal information of the executives.
The “press release” by Anonymous says things like “You have abused the judicial system in an attempt to censor information about how your product works” and more tellingly, “You saw a hornet’s nest, and you stuck your penises in it.”
But even though it may seem childish on the surface, Anonymous is not a group to be trifled with. They’ve taken on corporations before, most recently places like Bank of America, Paypal and a whole host of companies that decided to act against kindred spirit Wikileaks in various ways.
Yesterday, they took down Sony and Playstaion.com, and the Playstation Network was non-functional most of the day. There’s no official confirmation that despite claims of “routine maintenance,” this was actually because of Anonymous, but it seems like an awfully big coincidence if not. By taking down the service, Anonymous would presumably be trying to draw customer’s ire toward the company, as most wouldn’t know who was responsible for the outage.
But today there’s a new battlefront, as Anonymous has turned to start finding and publishing personal information about Sony executives. When the info is located, advice on the forums suggest to crank call them on Skype, place Craigslist erotic personals in their name and send their friends and loved ones “STD postcards” announcing a newly acquired disease. No one ever said they were mature, as often being straight up malicious overshadows the primary directive of the group. Nothing is sacred, and dueling with Anonymous is like trying to have a fistfight where your opponent kicks you in the groin, throws sand in your face and stabs you with a razor blade.

As of now, Sony.com and Playstation.com are online, and the PSN is back up almost everywhere. I agree that Sony isn’t handling this hacking disaster particularly well, but it’s hard to condone Anonymous’s tactics either.

http://blogs.forbes.com/insertcoin/2011/04/05/anonymous-declares-war-on-sony/