20-year old indicted for attacks on Fox and PBS television
14 Jun 2012
A 20-year old Briton has been indicted on charges related to hack attacks by the LulzSec group by a federal grand jury in the US, according to authorities. The group carried out hack attacks on the Fox and PBS television networks and Sony's film and TV studio.
Ryan Cleary, who is already jailed in the UK is facing prosecution over similar charges of carrying out 'botnet' attacks to steal confidential information, deface websites and attack servers. He was indicted on Tuesday.
According to Laura Eimmiler, Cleary was a skilled hacker, who controlled his own botnet, employed sophisticated methods and his operations affected a large number of businesses and individuals.
LulzSec, which is associated with the international hacking group Anonymous, has accepted its involvement in hacking government and private sector websites.
Anonymous, LulzSec and AntiSec another associated hack group, focused on internet regulation and blocking of free illegal downloads to start with, but later moved to targets such as Scientology and the global banking system.
The charges come only a couple of months following accused LulzSec hacker Cody Kretsinger's mea culpa in US District Court in Los Angeles over the breach at Sony Corp's Sony Pictures Entertainment.