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Hacker in police net

LONDON: A British teenager has been arrested in connection with a wave of cyber attacks on high-profile websites including those of the CIA and the U.S. Senate.

Ryan Cleary (19) was led away from his house in Essex on the outskirts of London following a raid by Scotland Yard and the FBI on Tuesday.

LulzSec

He is suspected to be the mastermind behind a group of hackers called Lulz Security (LulzSec) allegedly linked to hacking of websites of global businesses and intelligence agencies. Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency, American broadcaster Fox and the electronic firm Sony have been among its victims.

Police said a “significant amount of material” had been seized from Mr. Cleary's house and was being examined. Mr Cleary, held under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act, was being questioned in a London police station.Mr. Cleary's mother told the BBC he had been obsessed with computers since he was 12.

“Computers were his world,” she said.

Lulz Security, or LulzSec, emerged last month portraying itself as a “fun” group which intended to raise laughs (Lulz). But experts said it appeared to be planning to establish itself as a rival to Anonymous which was allegedly involved in hacking websites of companies that stopped services to WikiLeaks.

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