FBI Arrests 14 Over Group Anonymous' Alleged PayPal Attack

   DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

The FBI on Tuesday arrested 14 people for their alleged connection to a December attack on Ebay Inc.'s (EBAY) PayPal's website that weakened the service for several days.

The sweep was the latest government response to a series of high-profile online hacking attempts over the past few months that have exposed major vulnerabilities in the online security of some of the world's largest companies and organizations.

The Internet group known as Anonymous claimed responsibility online for the December attack, reportedly a retribution for PayPal's decision to stop processing donations made to the website WikiLeaks. PayPal is owned by EBay.

The assailants used a so-called distributed denial of service attack to saturate PayPal's servers with communications requests, making the website unusable for a time.

The FBI said it arrested the suspects in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. Other federal complaints filed in Florida and New Jersey led to two more arrests.

The defendants were charged with conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer.

FBI agents also executed more than 35 search warrants over cyber attacks against major companies and organizations. The U.K.'s Metropolitan Police Service also arrested one person, while the Dutch National Police Agency arrested four, for related crimes, the agency said.

-By Drew FitzGerald, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2909; [e-mail]