Police arrest three suspected internet ‘hacktivists’

SPANISH police arrested three suspected members of the so-called “Anonymous” group yesterday on charges of cyber attacks against targets including Sony’s PlayStation store, governments, businesses and banks.

The police said the accused, arrested in Almeria, Barcelona and Alicante, were guilty of coordinated computer attacks from a server set up in a house in Gijon in the north of Spain.

Spanish police alleged the three “hacktivists” had been involved in cyber attacks on Spanish banks BBVA and Bankia and the Italian energy group Enel as well as Sony PlayStation stores.

Members of the loosely coordinated Anonymous group, known for wearing Guy Fawkes masks made popular by the graphic novel V for Vendetta, had also attacked government sites in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, police said.

“They are structured in independent cells and make thousands of simultaneous attacks using infected ‘zombie’ computers worldwide.

“This is why NATO considers them a threat to the military alliance,” the police said in a statement.

“They are even capable of collapsing a country’s administrative structure.”

The arrests are the first in Spain against members of the group following similar legal proceedings in the US and Britain. The police did not rule out further arrests.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people may have fallen victim to internet hackers last week in the latest cyber-attack on a computer games giant.

Personal details were stolen during the breach at Codemasters, which comes after a spate of similar break-ins, including two against Sony.

The company has taken its website offline following the intrusion on June 3.

A subsequent investigation revealed passwords, IP addresses, XBox gamer tags and biographies were also stolen. Codemasters, which previously managed The Lord of the Rings online game, said it had emailed every customer ever registered on the site.

It insisted no payment data had been compromised.

- Reuters