U.K. police this week arrested two people associated with the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups. In retaliation for these and other arrests, meanwhile, Anonymous made public a 3GB file that contains private emails of several Texas police chiefs.
Scotland Yard said this morning that it arrested two men, ages 24 and 20, who are suspected of being behind the online identify known as “Kayla.” Their names were not released, but they are currently in custody in South Yorkshire and London.
"The arrests relate to our inquiries into a series of serious computer intrusions and online denial-of-service attacks recently suffered by a number of multi-national companies, public institutions and government and law enforcement agencies in Great Britain and the United States,” detective inspector Mark Raymond with the Central e-Crime Unit said in a statement. "We are working to detect and bring before the courts those responsible for these offences, to disrupt such groups, and to deter others thinking of participating in this type of criminal activity."
As PCMag pointed out in a June overview of suspected LulzSec hackers, Kayla “could be a 16-year-old girl, a 30-year-old New Jersey-based hacker, or anything in between.” For the moment, however, it appears that the U.K. police believe “she” is two British men. Earlier this year, security firm Imperva said Kayla had a massive, powerful botnet of 8,000 infected servers, the equivalent of 25 million PCs. Kayla is also suspected of being a key figure in the HBGary Federal hack.
On Thursday, Scotland Yard also arrested 20-year-old Christopher Jan Weatherhead and 26-year-old Ashley Rhodes for computer-related crimes; a 16-year-old boy was also arrested and referred to the Surrey Youth Justice Board. According to the Wall Street Journal, Weatherhead and Rhodes were also arrested in January in connection with the department’s Anonymous investigation.
If officials are trying to use these arrests as a deterrent, though, Anonymous doesn’t appear to be taking the hint. In an effort dubbed Texas Takedown Thursday, Anonymous dumped a 3GB file that contained emails from Texas police chiefs. The TexasPoliceChiefs.org Web site currently has a message that says it’s offline.
“In retaliation for the arrests of dozens of alleged Anonymous suspects, we opened fire on dozens of Texas police departments and stole boatloads of classified police documents and police chief emails across the state,” Anonymous said in a note posted to Pastebin.
The group said it has been trolling the officials’ emails for a month. “We leaked a few teasers including access to fbivirtualacademy.edu, several classified documents, voicemail recordings, live passwords, and even some dirty pictures. To continue the fighting spirit of WikiLeaks, we want to share the full Texas collection and expose these bumbling fools and all their secrets to the world,” the group said.
Some of those secrets include racist and sexist emails allegedly sent by Texas police that is “sure to embarrass, discredit, and incriminate several of these so-called ‘community leaders,’” Anonymous said.
This latest dump was not solely in response to the arrests; Anonymous said it was also part of an effort known as “Chinga Le Migra,” which is going after states that have imposed immigration laws with which Anonymous disagrees. Earlier this summer, Anonymous also attacked the Arizona Department of Public Safety on the same grounds.