16-Year Old Arrested Over World’s Biggest Cyber Attack

16-Year Old Arrested Over World’s Biggest Cyber Attack

In March 2013, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack of unprecedented ferocity was launched against the servers of Spamhaus, an international non-profit dedicated to battling spam.

The March Spamhaus attack peaked at 300 gigabits per second, Spamhaus CEO Steve Linford told the BBC at the time – the largest ever recorded, with enough force to cause worldwide disruption of the internet.

In April, one suspect was arrested in Spain.

Now, it’s come to light, another suspect was also secretly arrested in April – this one being a London schoolboy.

The 16-year-old was arrested as part of an international dragnet against a suspected organised crime gang, reports the London Evening Standard.

Detectives from the National Cyber Crime Unit detained the unnamed teenager at his home in southwest London.

The newspaper quotes a briefing document on the British investigation, codenamed Operation Rashlike, about the arrest:

“The suspect was found with his computer systems open and logged on to various virtual systems and forums. The subject has a significant amount of money flowing through his bank account. Financial investigators are in the process of restraining monies”.

Officers seized his computers and mobile devices.

The boy’s arrest, by detectives from the National Cyber Crime Unit, followed an international police operation against those suspected of carrying out the massive cyber attack, which slowed down the internet worldwide.

The briefing document says that the DDoS affected services that included the London Internet Exchange.

The boy has been released on bail until later this year, the London Evening Standard reports.

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