'Anonymous' hacker cell disrupted by Italian authorities

[News_Editor]

'Anonymous' hacker cell disrupted by Italian authorities

2011-07-06 05:08:11 GMT+7 (ICT)

ROME, ITALY (BNO NEWS) -- Italian authorities on Tuesday announced that a hacker cell with links to the Anonymous activism umbrella group linked to many cyber attacks was disrupted in various raids countrywide, the ANSA news agency reported.

Police conducted 31 raids across Italy and one in Switzerland which resulted in the arrests of 15 people, five of them minors. The leader of the hacker cell, a 26-year-old Swiss-Italian known as "Phre," was detained and charged as well.

The cell is accused of carrying out cyber attacks on private and government institutions, including the Italian Senate, House and central government. The most recent attack of the group occurred on Monday against AGCOM, the national communications regulatory body.

Other private organization targeted by the Italian hacker cell included energy giants ENEL and ENI; state broadcaster RAI; and Mediaset, the country's largest commercial broadcaster, owned by Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Italian police continue searching for 30 more suspects currently at large. Last December, Anonymous came under the spotlight when thousands of WikiLeaks supporters downloaded its attack software to defend the whistle-blowing website founded by Julian Assange.

On Monday, The Script Kiddies, a group claiming to be linked with Anonymous, hacked a webpage belonging to Fox News on the social networking website Twitter. They later posted false reports that U.S. President Barack Obama had been assassinated.

Hundreds of Anonymous members have perpetrated retaliatory attacks on web sites of multinational companies in revenge of any enterprise lining up against Assange. The group claimed responsibility for the December 8 attack on MasterCard's website which stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-07-06