Pentagon Hacker Arrested - A 23-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a breach of the U.S. Department of Defense satellite communication system in mid-June last year.
A statement from the National Crime Agency (NCA) said the suspect is one of 56 people arrested during a week-long crackdown on cybercrime in the country.
Reports indicate that the suspect, who is thought to be a member of Lizard Squad, was arrested in Sutton Coldfield on Wednesday. Authorities are yet to disclose the identity of the suspect and an anonymous insider with the agency has revealed that he is yet to be officially charged. It will be interesting to see whether he is tried in Britain or extradited to the US.
The breach into the Pentagon's communication system last year is regarded as one of the most daring and successful cyber attack against the US.
While, according to the NCA, the hackers did not obtain any 'sensitive data" during the attack, the hackers got hold of the contact details of up to 800 people and also accessed information about up to 34,400 mobile devices used by employees of the Department of Defense.
The hackers later taunted the Department of Defense with messages to show that their systems had been hacked. According to the New York Times, one of these messages was a screenshot of the Department of Defense system, another was a text that said "[The] Department of Defense has no defenses."
Terrorists are increasingly turning to cyber attacks as the importance of the web continues to grow. The NCA has revealed that it is collaborating with the Pentagon and the FBI to investigate and apprehend cyber criminals.
"Criminals need to realize that committing crime online will not make them anonymous to law enforcement," said Andy Archibald, the deputy director of the NCA'S National Cyber Crime Unit."We are continuously working to track down and apprehend those seeking to utilize computers for criminal ends, and to disrupt the technical networks and infrastructures supporting international cyber crime."
These same thoughts were echoed by Jeffrey Thorpe, the head of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, who said that the agency "will use every tool at their disposal to pursue and bring to justice those that attack the Department of Defense."
© 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
