US Charges Six With Computer-Hacking - Wall Street Journal

By CHAD BRAY

U.S. authorities unveiled criminal charges on Tuesday against six people in the U.S. and overseas that they described as important members of computer-hacking groups, including one known as Anonymous, that carried out a series of high-profile online attacks in recent years and stole confidential information from major companies.

The charges are the latest development in a global crackdown on hackers who have undertaken denial-of-service attacks and computer breaches at corporations, banks and government affiliates. Computer hacking groups Anonymous and Lulz Security, a splinter group, have taken credit for many of the incidents.

The alleged hacking announced Tuesday affected more than 1 million people through the disclosure of their personal data, according to law enforcement officials.

It included computer breaches that led to the disclosure of personal information related to more than 70,000 potential contestants on the Fox Broadcasting Co.'s "X Factor," as well as users of Sony Inc.'s and video-game maker Bethesda Softworks's Web sites.

In one instance, hackers also were able to access and secretly record a telephone call between U.S., Irish and other law enforcement officials, which was later posted on Google Inc.'s YouTube.

On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said they had brought criminal charges against four people who described themselves as being members of Anonymous, LulzSec and another group, Internet Feds.

They are Ryan Ackroyd and Jake Davis, both of the U.K., and Darren Martyn and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, both of Ireland. Their lawyers couldn't immediately be located for comment Tuesday.

The charges against them related in part to alleged hacks of Fox, Sony and the Public Broadcasting System, prosecutors said. The PBS attack allegedly was in retaliation for perceived unfair news coverage of Wikileaks by its "Frontline" television program.

A fifth member of those groups, Hector Xavier Monsegur, pleaded guilty in August to a variety of criminal charges, including computer-hacking conspiracy. He faces as much as 124 years in prison.

The charges against Mr. Monsegur, 28 years old, of New York, weren't disclosed until Tuesday, which could be an indication he is cooperating in the investigation. A lawyer for Mr. Monsegur declined to comment Tuesday.

Mr. Monsegur was allegedly among a group of hackers who took credit for cyber attacks against Visa, Mastercard and Ebay Inc.'s Paypal as retaliation for their refusal to process payments for Wikileaks.

Prosecutors alleged that members of Internet Feds—specifically Messrs. Monsegur, Ackroyd, Davis, Martyn and O'Cearrbhail—engaged in an online campaign between December 2010 and May 2011 in which they broke into websites, stole personal information and used it to hijack email or Twitter accounts.

Their attacks allegedly included breaches of the website for Irish political party Fine Gael, security firm HBGary Inc. and Fox.

(News Corp . owns Fox and The Wall Street Journal.)

A sixth person, Jeremy Hammond, was arrested in Chicago and charged with conspiracy in connection with a December 2011 hacking of Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor, prosecutors said.

Mr. Hammond, who has identified himself as a member of another offshoot group, AntiSec, and his co-conspirators allegedly stole confidential information related to about 860,000 clients and subscribers of Stratfor and used some of the data to make unauthorized credit-card charges in excess of $700,000, prosecutors said.

A lawyer for Mr. Hammond couldn't immediately be located Tuesday.