AFP

Spanish police arrest five 'active' hackers

Sat May 17, 3:24 PM

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish police on Saturday announced the arrest of five suspected hackers, including two 16-year-olds, who are accused of attacking government websites in the United States, Asia and Latin America.

The youths belonged to "one of the most active groups of hackers on the Internet," having disabled 21,000 Web pages over a two-year period, a police statement said.

"They would substitute the contents of the Web pages attacked with protest messages and included the same anarchist symbols," it added.

Although the group had never met, it is alleged that they organised and coordinated their attacks over the Internet, working in particular with hackers in Latin America.

Police did not identify which government sites were targeted, but the online edition of the El Mundo newspaper reported that the Internet sites of NASA and the Venezuelan national telephone company were among the targets.

The five were arrested this week in the Spanish cities of Barcelona, Burgos, Malaga and Valencia.

The arrests follow a probe launched after the website of the left-wing alliance Izquierda Unida (United Left) was hacked and caricatures of politicians inserted, days ahead of the March 9 Spanish elections.

If convicted, they face jail terms of between one and three years.

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