UK Teenager Arrested for Hacking Important Government Websites

Theinquirer.net reported on 20th August, 2015 stating that Charlton Floate, a 19 year old UK teenager, has been arrested with some others for the cyber attacks who seemingly hacked the websites of FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and Home Office.

Floate was arrested in Birmingham for his online crimes and has pleaded guilty to three charges under the Computer Misuse Act along with other charges related to the holding of prohibited material.

The attacks occurred in January 2013 when Floate and a gang of other cybercriminals severely damaged government websites with floods of digital traffic sent from malware-infected systems.

Such systems are frequently referred to as zombie computers and they are broadly used in botnets to gang up on websites with a DDoS or distributed denial of service attack.

The gang managed to pull down the site of UK's Home Office for 83 minutes which is a heavily used website which provides details on passports and immigration along with other things. The group also knocked down an FBI site for more than five hours which allowed users to report crime.

Nakedsecurity.sophos.com published news on 24th August, 2015 quoting Kevin Barry, Prosecutor, as saying "Floate performed two test runs in November 2012 remotely attacking the PCs of two men in the US."

Floate uploaded a sexually open video to YouTube to "mock and shame" one of his victims and he ridiculed the other victim as he was controlling his computer.

Floate also apparently boasted about the attacks on government site on Twitter and on a forum often visited by hackers.

Police could link him to what had been going on when he used his IP address to check how effective the attacks had been.

Mr. Barry said that officers had recovered the computer used by the respondent from the address of his mother in Solihull (West Midlands of England) and also his mobile number.

Dailymail.co.uk published news on 19th August, 2015 quoting Barry as saying "there was also evidence which proved that Floate had tried to recruit another person in the scheme with discussions about probable weaknesses in certain websites and likely future targets including The White House and the CIA."

» SPAMfighter News - 9/2/2015