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 Man arrested as a result of a Web sniff operation
January 20, 2005
A man has been arrested on suspicion of launching attacks over the Internet after an operation between Scottish police and the US Secret Service, which has been code-named "Operation Casper"
The houses in Scotland are being searched for materials relating to the case, in which a network of zombie computers is used to launch a Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks (DDoS) or the flood of mass spam to disrupt everyday activity of the Internet users.
The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency's (SDEA) National Hi-Tech Crime Unit is leading the investigation. "Over the past year we have seen a considerable rise in this type of attack, some of which also form the basis for extortion attacks," a spokesman for the SDEA told the BBC.
Matthew Anderson, 27 was charged with offences against the Computer Misuse Act 1990 at a private hearing at Elgin Sheriff's Court. The man has been charged under the Computer Misuse Act with targeting both US and Scottish businesses.
Last year criminal launched DDOS attacks on a number of high-profile web sites, crippling computer networks by flooding them with a high levels of traffic using thousands of infected zombie computers.
No plea was entered and Anderson was released on bail pending further police inquiries.
Anderson was arrested Friday, 14 January as part of an investigation into attempts to extort a "significant quantity of money" from online businesses across the world, the Daily Record reports.
It's only the second time anyone has been charged with a DDoS offence. Aaron Caffrey, charged with committing a DDoS attack on the port of Houston's IT systems, was acquitted in 2003.
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