Police Arrest Teenager In TeaMp0isoN Raid

Police in Newcastle have arrested a 17-year-old boy alleged to be a spokesman for hacking group TeaMp0isoN, which has claimed responsibility for more than 1,400 hacks.

The boy was arrested on Wednesday by Northumbria police, supported by the Police Central eCrime Unit (PCeU), according to London’s Metropolitan Police Service. He was charged with offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, according to police, who said they seized computer equpment and are subjecting it to forensic examination.

‘MLT’

“The suspect, who is believed to use the online ‘nic’ (nickname) ‘MLT’, is allegedly a member of and spokesperson for TeaMp0isoN (‘TeamPoison’),” Scotland Yard said in a statement.

TeaMp0isoN’s offences include “denial of service and network intrusions where personal and private information has been illegally extracted from victims in the UK and around the world”, police stated.

In April, TeaMp0isoN members attacked the phone lines of the UK intelligence agency MI6 on Tuesday, in a 24-hour “phone bomb” hack, recording and publishing a conversation with members of Counter Terrorism Command officials. Police admitted the recordings were genuine, but said their internal communications systems had not been hacked.

Two teenagers in the West Midlands were later arrested in connection with the incident.

History of hacks

TeaMp0isoN has also been connected with exposing the personal data of former prime minister Tony Blair and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, as well as usernames, email addresses and passwords from the website of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In August 2011, the group defaced Research In Motion’s BlackBerry blog to protest the company’s plans to help police apprehend individuals involved in the London riots.

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