Teenage hacker arrested over DDoS attacks

A 19 year old from Essex, Ryan Cleary, has been arrested under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act after a joint operation by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

According to an official statement from the Metropolitan Police, "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."

Cleary, apparently named by a local source once news of the arrest broke, received press attention back in May for targeting the network servers of Anonymous, another hacker group he was once a member of.

While neither the police or FBI have confirmed that the teenager is one of the Lulz Security hackers, the arrest follows Monday's attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency's website, which Lulzsec publicly took responsibilty for via Twitter. They've now used the same account to distance themselves from the suspect. "Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it's all over now... wait... we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?"

Lulzsec has also hacked websites of the CIA, FBI and targeted game sites, including Bethesda and MMO Eve Online. It however offered to help Sega when different hackers compromised its Sega Pass system. "Contact us. We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down. "

The arrest took place during a raid on a property in Wickford, Essex, where materials were also seized for forensic examination. The teenager is currently still in custody and undergoing questioning.