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CORRECTED - Spanish police arrest 'Anonymous' PlayStation attackers

Fri Jun 10, 2011 3:05pm EDT

(Corrects headline to attackers instead of hackers and throughout story to show that allegations are of cyber attacks, not hacking, and that they were against Sony PlayStation store, not Sony PlayStation network; corrects spelling of Libya in paragraph 4; corrects Reuters instrument code for Sony in first paragraph )

MADRID, June 10 (Reuters) - Spanish police arrested three suspected members of the so-called "Anonymous" group on Friday on charges of cyber attacks against targets including Sony's (6758.T) PlayStation store, governments, businesses and banks.

The police said the accused, arrested in Almeria, Barcelona and Alicante, were guilty of coordinated computer attacks from a server set up in a house in Gijon in the north of Spain.

Spanish police alleged the three arrested "hacktivists" had been involved in cyber attacks on Spanish banks BBVA (BBVA.MC) and Bankia and the Italian energy group Enel (ENEI.MI) as well as Sony PlayStation stores.

Members of the loosely coordinated "Anonymous" group, known for wearing Guy Fawkes masks made popular by the graphic novel "V for Vendetta," had also attacked government sites in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand, police said.

"They are structured in independent cells and make thousands of simultaneous attacks using infected 'zombie' computers worldwide. This is why NATO considers them a threat to the military alliance," the police said in a statement.

"They are even capable of collapsing a country's administrative structure."

The arrests are the first in Spain against members of the "Anonymous" group following similar legal proceedings in the United States and Britain.

The police did not rule out further arrests. (Reporting by Iciar Reinlein, Writing by Paul Day; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

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Comments (1)
Asaki wrote:
All along the pentagon strong man was calling for reprisals against who ever may hack on their cumputers.So there in the us was the country that anonymous hackers and this groups have been cousing havocks and disabling computers all along and yet the FBI is not investigating this groups and arrest them behind bars for their heinous crimes that they have commited both in the US and other countries as well.

Jun 13, 2011 6:54am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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