Essex teen charged over LulzSec attack on SOCA

The 19-year-old Essex man recently arrested on suspicion of computer crimes has been charged over LulzSec's attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA.)

Police allege that Ryan Cleary used a botnet to contribute to the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the SOCA web site. Cleary is being charged with numerous violations of the 1990 Computer Misuse Act.

Cleary is said to have used his network of infected botnet PCs to launch the DDoS attack, a technique that usually involves flooding a site with requests for data, eventually causing the site to be rendered inaccessible.

In addition to the SOCA attack, Cleary was charged with taking part in another DDoS attack against the British Phonographic Institute on 29 October 2010.

Cleary was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers late on Monday evening at his home in Wickford, Essex, on suspicion of playing a major role in the LulzSec operation. The hacking group has since refuted the allegations, claiming that Cleary's only association with LulzSec was running an IRC server that the group occasionally used for chat services.

"Interesting, they charge him with the SOCA attack, maybe he hit SOCA after we did?" LulzSec said in a Twitter posting.

"It was suspiciously down again after we let it up."

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at security firm Sophos, noted in a blog posting that Cleary has been reported to be linked to other attacks as well.

"There has been speculation in the media that Cleary might also have been involved in internet attacks by the LulzSec group against web sites belonging to Sony and the CIA," Cluley wrote.

"But at the moment it appears he is being called to answer questions against British web sites."