Sophos Cloud Optix
The British 19-year-old arrested on Monday night in connection with a series of internet attacks has been formally charged and is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow.
Ryan Cleary, of Wickford, Essex, has been charged with offences under the Criminal Law Act and Computer Misuse Act by PCeU officers (Police Central e-Crime Unit).
The charges claim that he built a botnet to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks against the likes of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
There has been speculation in the media that Cleary might also have been involved in internet attacks by the LulzSec group against websites belonging to Sony and the CIA, but at the moment it appears he is being called to answer questions against British websites.
Cleary is is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday. More details about the charges against him are available in a press release issued by the Metropolitan Police.
You may also wish to read a report from The Daily Telegraph, which contains some suggestions that Cleary has lead a troubled life.
Finding himself at the centre of a high profile cybercrime case is probably the last thing that he needed.
I dnt knw..why Sophos always delights when a hacker gets caught..
Seems pretty logical to me. Sophos is in the business of computer security. Asking why they are happy to see a hacker arrested is like asking why a safe manufacturer is happy to see a safe cracker arrested. LulzSec are not out to help improve security or protect anyone. LulzSec is out causing havoc for their own enjoyment and that is all. They need to be punished for their acts. There are better ways to point out security flaws then exposing innocent peoples stolen information. Like simply notifying the company of the security hole and also notifying a news group that a system has been compromised.
His troubled life is not an excuse, though I am against him being extradited to the US. I am only against that though because if an American committed a crime against the UK there is no agreement in place to get them sent here. These people are nothing but a nuisance and should be punished.
IIRC, back in the early 1990s, a chap called Dr Joseph Popp was extradited from the USA to the UK to stand trial on blackmail charges relating to ransomware called the "AIDS Information Trojan". IIRC he committed the crime in the USA but many UK nationals were targeted, and vicitms identified. So he was sent to the UK, charged, put on trial, behaved weirdly and got kicked out of the trial and the country.
I am aware that UK-US extradition arrangements changed in the early 2000s – under the new regulations, would Popp have been "safe" in the USA for his cybercrimes? It seems to beggar belief that he could have been extradited back then but would be able to resist extradition now, given the explosion in multi-jurisdiction cybercrimen
(The AIDS Information Trojan counted until you'd restarted your computer 90 times. If you hadn't yet bought a licence for Popp's "AIDS advice" software – which was of the most doubtful fitness for purpose – it scrambled your disk and tried to extort payment. Fortunately, the scrambling wasn't fit for purpose, either, and various free tools emerged to fix the problem automatically without paying Popp at all.)
@ Bobbyblue24…
What 'delight' within the report are you referring to?
Personally, I don't see any sentiment of pleasure or satisfaction inferred/communicated at all. On the contrary, the closing comment alludes to a person (an 'alleged' hacker incidentally, Bobby) who finds himself in a situation that is likely a distressing one.
Given the purpose of the products/information Sophos actually provides, I don't think it necessary to belabour the other obvious point regarding how strange your remark seems posted here…you work it out.
Nice catch. How’d they do it? I’d like to know if he really is affiliated with LulzSec.
I thought this was an interesting related article… looks like members of the group may be turning on eachother…
http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/lulzsec-outs-sn…