Met holds 5 men over Web attacks

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Service’s e-Crime Unit have arrested five people in connection with attacks on a number of websites, including PayPal and MasterCard.
The five males aged, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 26, are being held under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 after a series of co-ordinated arrests at homes in the West Midlands, Northants, Herts, Surrey and London.
The arrests are in relation to recent and ongoing ‘distributed denial of service’ attacks (DDoS) by an online group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’.
They are part of an ongoing Met investigation in to Anonymous which began last year following criminal allegations of DDoS attacks by the group against several companies.
This investigation is being carried out in conjunction with international law enforcement agencies in Europe and the US.
All five have been taken to local police stations where they remain in custody.
The Anonymous collective has invited volunteers to download its denial of service tool in order to swamp targeted sites with junk traffic. The use of the tool took off with attacks against the entertainment industry and organisations, such as controversial solicitors ACS:Law.