March 29, 2024

Bits: Arrests Likely in Hacker Group Case

Jon Nazca/Reuters

Federal authorities in Washington are expected to announce charges on Tuesday against roughly a dozen suspected members of the activist hacker group Anonymous, officials said.

The charges, brought by federal prosecutors in New Jersey, California and Florida, focus on cyber attacks and unauthorized access to computer systems, one law-enforcement official said.

Earlier Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed three search warrants in connection with the hacker group, law-enforcement officials said. Two of the raids were executed at homes on Long Island, while the other raid took place in an apartment building in Brooklyn. The authorities said they seized computers in the raid.

The authorities said the executed search warrants were related to a case under investigation in the Northern District of California.

Anonymous has been at the center of the news lately with members of the loosely organized group ramping up attacks on corporate and government Web sites. In recent months the group has started to call its efforts AntiSec, or Anti Security, and says it hopes to expose security flaws online.

Anonymous has claimed responsibility in the past for attacking MasterCard and Visa in an effort to assist the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. The group has also attacked sites related to the Church of Scientology.

The New York raids were first reported by FoxNews.com.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e60b6084a8b5b280b76f6011dd05a87d