19-year-old held in UK for hacking CIA,Sony websites

The arrest took place following a joint operation by its Internet crimes unit and the FBI,the Metropolitan Police said.

A 19-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of involvement with cyber attacks on Sony and the CIA website,British police said Tuesday. The arrest took place following a joint operation by its Internet crimes unit and the FBI,the Metropolitan Police said.

The British police would not say if the suspect was tied to the Lulz Security hacking collective,which has claimed responsibility for recent high-profile attacks. The police declined to identify the suspect because he has not been charged.

The teenager was arrested in the commuter town of Wickford,about 55 km northeast of London,late Monday on suspicion of hacking and fraud offences and taken to a central London police station for questioning,the police said.

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The police said the arrest resulted from an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial-of-service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group. Officers are conducting forensic examinations on a significant amount of material found in the search of a home following the arrest.

Lulz has taken credit for hacking into Sony Corp and defacing the PBS website after the US public television station aired a documentary seen as critical of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The hackers also said they are responsible for attacks on the CIA website. Most recently,Lulz said it had brought down the website of Britains FBI equivalent,the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The Luz Twitter account appeared to make light of the news about Tuesdays arrest. Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested,its all over now… wait… were all still here!, the group Tweeted Tuesday afternoon.