Australia police arrest hacker group LulzSec 'leader'

Australian police say they have arrested a "self-proclaimed leader" of the hacking group LulzSec.

The 24-year-old from New South Wales is accused of attacking and defacing a government website earlier this month, a police statement said.

Lulzsec has claimed responsibility for several high profile cyber-attacks, including against Sony Pictures and the CIA.

It emerged as a splinter-group of hacking collective Anonymous in 2011.

In the statement, the Australian Federal Police said that the arrested man was an IT professional who used his position in an IT company to access sensitive information from clients, including government agencies.

He has been charged with two counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment, and one count of unauthorised access to restricted data. He faces a maximum of 12 years in jail.

"Those thinking of engaging in such activities should be warned that hacking, creating or propagating malicious viruses or participating in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are not harmless fun," Cyber Crimes Commander Glen McEwen said.

LulzSec gained international attention when they hacked the Sony website in 2011, taking down the company's PlayStation network for weeks and accessing millions of users' accounts.

It was estimated to have cost the company over $100 million (£65m) and was part of a 50-day rampage which targeted organisations ranging from the FBI to Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The name stood for Lulz Security - in which "Lulz" is derived from the popular internet term "lol", meaning "laugh out loud".

The group's members employed techniques to flood websites with high traffic - known as DDoS attacks - in order to render them unusable.

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Blackout @ 22 April 2013

Anonymous Raises $54,000 to Open "Your Anon News" Website

Ars Technica reports that an Indiegogo fundraiser set up by “Jackal Anon” closed, raising $54,668 to set up a dedicated news site for Anonymous. The campaign initially set out to raise $2,000 for the site, which will be called Your Anon News (or YAN, for short) after the group's Twitter handle. The fundraiser blew past that goal on Tuesday April 16th, according to Indiegogo.

Anonymous is looking to move some of their content away from Twitter and Tumblr with their own domain name for news.

As a website owner, $2,000 isn’t a lot to start-up however $54,000 should get them out of the gate in a hurry. As Anonymous likes to say – “You Should Have Expected Us”. As hacker groups go, Anonymous has managed to make a name for themselves. As one of the few smaller, independent websites out there we look forward to what they can do to shake up the status quo. It is difficult for a couple of guys like us to compete with the large mainstream websites who spend their days bulldozing comments, speculation, rumors and bias down everyone’s throat day in and day out as the masses line up to swallow it.

Pirate Bay Founder Charged With Hacking Companies and a Bank

A Swedish prosecutor has announced new hacking related charges against Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm. Together with three others he is suspected of hacking several companies including a bank, from where the defendants allegedly attempted to transfer money. The new changes will most likely mean that Svartholm will remain in prison when his Pirate Bay sentence concludes next month.

In late August 2012, Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was deported from Cambodia to Sweden.

Initially it was thought that Gottfrid had been taken to serve the prison time he was handed for his involvement in The Pirate Bay, but quickly it become clear the authorities also had other things on their minds.

Once he landed in Sweden the authorities claimed Gottfrid had been involved in several instances of hacking, and today prosecutor Henry Olin of the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm announced several charges against the Pirate Bay co-founder.

Svartholm has been charged with several hacking related offenses including serious fraud, attempted aggravated fraud, and aiding attempted aggravated fraud. Three other defendants received similar charges.

“The data breaches involve very large amounts of data from companies and governments, including extensive personal data such as social security numbers and private details,”commented prosecutor Henry Olin.

The prosecution office further explains that among other offenses, the defendants hacked the Nordea Bank in an attempt to carry out unauthorized transactions.

According to the indictment, Svartholm tried to transfer 5.7 million Swedish kronor ($900,000) to various accounts, but only 27,000 Kronor belonging to a Danish trade union was effectively transferred out.

“Offenses of fraud and attempted fraud are worsened when preceded by sophisticated hacking, were systematic, were intended to have significant cost and impact on public confidence in the payment system and were of a particularly dangerous nature,” the prosecution writes in the indictment.

Evidence of the crimes was obtained through a seized computer and logs of chats between Svartholm and one of the other defendants.

A trial is currently scheduled to take place late May. Svartholm will have completed his Pirate Bay sentence by that time but with the new charges filed against him it is unlikely that he will be released.

“There is a risk that Gottfrid Svartholm Warg will flee or otherwise evade prosecution or punishment,” the prosecutor warns in the indictment.