Teenager arrested after cyber attack brings online game Call Of Duty crashing down



A teenage computer geek has been arrested for hacking into a best-selling online game to boost his own score.

The 17-year-old is accused of bringing Call Of Duty crashing down after launching a cyber attack from his bedroom.

The alleged hacker prevented thousands of fans logging on in a bid to rack up the winning score by preventing anyone better than him killing his character.

Call Of Duty: A 17-year-old from Manchester has been arrested after the online version of the game was brought crashing down by a hacker

He then allegedly offered to sell the programme he had used to cripple the site to other players so that they too could attack their competitors and increase their scores.



The teenager was detained at his home in Manchester by the Metropolitan Police's e-Crime unit yesterday on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act. He remains in police custody for questioning.



Scotland Yard said the game's publishers, Activision, alerted them in September after the site was attacked by a programme called Phenom Booter.



Cyber crime: Game makers Activision alerted Scotland Yard after the attack

The 'denial of service' attack had bombarded the website with so many messages it ground to a halt.



The disruption to the service left thousands of gamers unable to take part in Call Of Duty: Black Ops for several hours as IT experts battled to get it back up and running.



Officers said they established the attack server was hosted in the UK and further investigation traced the IP address to the Greater Manchester area.

Detective Inspector Paul Hoare said: 'Online gaming is a major retail sector with millions of titles being sold in the run-up to Christmas worldwide.



'Programmes marketed in order to disrupt the online infrastructure not only affect individual players but have commercial and reputational consequences for the companies concerned.



'These games attract both children and young people to the online environment and this type of crime can often be the precursor to further offending in more traditional areas of online crime.'

The Call Of Duty franchise is among the biggest brands in the gaming industry.



Seven million copies of Call Of Duty: Black Ops were sold within 24 hours of going on sale, making it the fastest-selling video game of all time.

