London police have arrested a 19-year-old man for several high-profile cyber attacks that could be connected to hacker group LulzSec.
The unnamed teenager was arrested in Essex for violations of the UK's Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act, and was taken to a central London police station, where he remains for questioning, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement. The e-Crime Unit worked in conjunction with the Essex Police and the FBI on the arrest.
The announcement did not specifically mention LulzSec (or similar hacking group, Anonymous), but it did say the arrests came after an investigation into "network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group."
LulzSec, however, denied that one of its members was in custody.
"Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it's all over now... wait... we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?" the group tweeted.
Anonymous has not yet addressed the arrests. Several of its members have been arrested this year in the UK, Spain, and Turkey.
LulzSec has claimed responsibility for hacking Sony, Nintendo, Bethesda Softworks, and other gaming companies, as well as FBI-affiliated Web sites, Senate.gov, and the CIA. Yesterday, the group teamed up with Anonymous for Operation Anti-Security, in which both groups pledged to target government sites. They were successful in taking down the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency's (SOCA) site, and LulzSec said later that it also targeted the UK Census.
"We have blissfully obtained records of every single citizen who gave their records to the security-illiterate UK government for the 2011 census," LulzSec said in a note posted on Pastebin. "We're keeping them under lock and key though... so don't worry about your privacy (...until we finish re-formatting them for release)."
In a statement, the UK's Office for National Statistics, which handles the census, said it is "working with our security advisers and contractors to establish whether there is any substance to this."
"The 2011 Census places the highest priority on maintaining the security of personal data," ONS continued. "At this stage we have no evidence to suggest that any such compromise has occurred."
Update: LulzSec said Tuesday that it was not responsible for the UK Census hack. "Just saw the pastebin of the UK census hack. That wasn't us - don't believe fake LulzSec releases unless we put out a tweet first," the group tweeted. "But hey, if someone out there hacked the UK government in the name of #AntiSec, well done sirs!"