This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Suspected hackers accused of attacks on targets including Yahoo and the US Department of Defense are among 57 people who have been arrested in the UK as part of a major crackdown on cybercrime.

The arrests, made in 25 separate raids as part of the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) cybercrime “strike week”, were in connection with data thefts from multinational companies and government agencies, fraud and the development of computer viruses.

A 21-year-old man arrested on Thursday is suspected of involvement in an attack committed by the ‘D33Ds Company’ hacking group, which stole more than 400,000 email addresses and passwords from Yahoo and published them online in 2012.



On Wednesday, a 23-year old man was arrested by the NCA’s national cyber crime unit (NCCU), supported by West Midlands police, on suspicion of offences relating to the hacking of the US Department of Defense (DoD) in June last year.

This was said to relate to the theft of information from the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services global communication system used by the DoD to communicate with employees internationally.

Others arrested in various parts of the UK included a 22-year-old in Aldbourne, near Marlborough in Wiltshire, on suspicion of developing and distributing malware; a 20-year-old in Hackney, London, on suspicion of committing a £15,000 phishing attack; and a 16-year-old male from the Pudsey area of Leeds, for suspected offences concerning distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, in which an online service is made unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic, on some 350 websites.

The NCA posted footage on YouTube of the raid in Aldbourne, in which officers were shown searching a property and retrieving items including discs from what appears to be a safe, before a suspect was led away.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Footage released by the National Crime Agency of a raid in which a suspected developer of malware (malicious software) is taken into custody.

Andy Archibald, deputy director of the NCCU, said: “We are continuously working to track down and apprehend those seeking to utilise computers for criminal ends, and to disrupt the technical networks and infrastructures supporting international cyber crime.



“It’s imperative that we continue to work with partners to pursue and disrupt the major crime groups targeting the UK but also, crucially, work to make sure that people have the knowledge and resources to make the UK as inhospitable as possible for cybercriminals in the first place.”



The NCA also said that, working with the US FBI, a production order had been served by the East Midlands policeregional organised crime unit on a hosting company whose servers are suspected of being used to house criminal infrastructure.

Other arrests as part of the week-long operation included that of two men, aged 38 and 29, who were detained in south London and Cambridge for suspected offences relating to the theft of valuable intellectual property from a London financial company.

Also in London, a 27-year-old from Leyton was arrested on suspicion of cyber-enabled fraud, while a 25-year-old man from north London was held on suspicion of using malware against banks and causing financial losses as a result.

A total of 25 suspects in the London and Essex areas were arrested by the Metropolitan police fraud and linked crime online (Falcon) unit on suspicion of cyber-enabled fraud offences, including fraud by false representation, theft and money laundering.

In Watford, an 18-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of the development and administration of the Titanium and Avenger stressor tools, which have been used in DDoS attacks on public-sector websites, including police. Stressor tools are publicly available programs that are ostensibly for testing the vulnerability to cyber-attack of one’s website but can also be used maliciously.

A 22-year-old man and a 59-year-old woman were arrested in the Camberwell area of London, suspected of offences relating to cyber-enabled fraud targeting high street retailer loyalty point schemes.

In Wales, a 33-year-old man from Barry was arrested on suspicion of a DDoS on a rival company for competitive advantage.

The Peter Goodman, deputy chief constable and national policing lead for cybercrime, said cybercrime was not victimless.

He added: “A high-end cyber-attack against financial institutions could have a far-reaching impact on our economy. Small- and medium-sized businesses can be bankrupted by a cyber-attack, with owners and staff losing their jobs.”