Just a few hours ago the UK’s police force announced they had arrested a member of hacking collective LulzSec in Shetland, an island off the north coast of Scotland (not, as Fox reported in the US, in London). As part of the same police operation a 17 year old male is also being questioned under caution and a house in Linolnshire is being searched.
Although several arrests have been made in connection to a string of breaches attributed to the group in the last few months, today’s arrest is the first where the authorities have specifically named a member of LulzSec. The 19 year old suspect is believed to be Topiary, the group’s spokesperson. Despite their high-profile activities, LulzSec is only believed to be formed of around seven core members – so if the police have indeed collared Topiary it could prove a major reality-check for other LulzSec members.
Just today Anonymous, of which LulzSec is now a part, issued a statement imploring members of the public to boycott PayPal in retaliation for their blocking of WikiLeaks donations last year – part of what has been termed Operation Payback.
Despite the continued arrests of alleged members LulzSec has remained bullish on their Twitter account (although they have not posted since the arrest), and through statements posted on Pastebin, usually claiming the individuals in custody are unconnected to the group of only peripheral members.
LulzSec have overseen a number of high-profile hacks in the last few months under the banner of “hacktivism”, most recently an attack on Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper in retaliation for journalists from the now-defunct News of the World hacking the voicemail of a missing schoolgirl in the UK. Since launching assaults again law enforcement agencies in the US efforts to apprehend the members of LulzSec have accellerated dramatically.
