UK police charge alleged Lulzsec member Ryan Cleary

THE LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE has charged teenage hacker Ryan Cleary with five offences relating to his alleged involvement with the group Lulzsec.

The 19-year-old Cleary was charged with four offences under Section 3 and 3A of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 and one offence under Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act of 1997.

The primary offence, alleged to have occurred on or before 20 June, was a conspiracy to hack computers to then disseminate a program that would create a botnet for the express purpose of committing Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, with the purpose to impair the use of computers on the target network. He is accused of having committed this offence with a number of unknown people.

Thr second charge, relating to the same date, is the use of DDoS attacks against the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). A number of factors make this crime more serious, including intent and recklessness, since the attacks allegedly could have had a major impact on SOCA data.

The third charge relates to DDoS attacks against the web site of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), dating back to 28 November, 2010. The fourth charge is related to similar attacks against the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 29 October, 2010.

The final charge, also dated on or before June 20, relates to providing a botnet for the purpose of commiting DDoS attacks.

These charges are related only to the UK web sites that were hit by Lulzsec. There is a possibility that, like the alleged NASA hacker Gary McKinnon, Cleary could face extradition to the US, where he might face a much larger number of offences relating to attacks on Sony, the US Senate, the FBI and the CIA.

The fact that Cleary has been charged with offences from 2010 suggests that he was being watched for some time. It might be that it was only when the web site of the SOCA was attacked that the police decided he had crossed the line and it was finally time to pull him in.

Cleary was arrested on Tuesday, when up to a dozen officers from the Met's central e-crime unit raided his home in Wickford, Essex. A number of computers were seized and examined, which will undoubtedly be used as evidence against him at his trial. There might also be incriminating information relating to the alleged other six members of Lulzsec.

Lulzsec claims that Cleary has little to do with its group beyond hosting its chatrooms on his servers, which, if true, means that he was not directly involved in the DDoS attacks. However, it appears that there is evidence to suggest that he ran a botnet that Lulzsec employed for this purpose.

He is due in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court today. µ