14 DAY TRIAL // The Metropolitan Police has arrested a teenager from Essex on suspicion of participating in recent cyber attacks against international businesses and intelligence agencies.
The 19-year-old was arrested in his house in Wickford, Essex, last night. A search of the residence has resulted in the seizure of a significant amount of material.
"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 Met announced.
Some news sites reported that the teenager is a member of the infamous hacking outfit LulzSec which has been attacking companies and government agencies for the past few weeks.
But, while the description would surely fit LulzSec's activities, there is no official confirmation that the suspect is linked to this group. In fact, based on some information leaked on the Internet, the prime candidate for the suspect's identity is a former Anonymous member known as Ryan.
Ryan is believed to have participated in the attack against HBGary Federal and other Anonymous DDoS operations until a few weeks ago when, due to disagreements, he left the hacktivist group.
However, on his way out, Ryan hijacked the Anonymous IRC server used for coordinating attacks, as well as two domain names used by the group, crippling its activities for days. In retaliation, the remaining members "doxed" him.
According to them, Ryan is one Ryan Cleary that lives at 10 South Beech Avenue, Wickford, Essex, SS11 8AH. If this info is correct and the arrested teenager is indeed Ryan, then Anonymous served him on a silver platter to the authorities.
Of course, it is possible that after he left Anonymous, Ryan joined LulzSec, or even took part in its creation. However, other former Anons like Topiary or Sabu didn't hide the fact that they are behind LulzSec. Why would Ryan? I guess we'll just have to wait to find out.