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FBI hacking probe leads to area teen

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By Lauren Pack, Staff Writer Updated 11:27 PM Tuesday, June 28, 2011

HAMILTON — A Hamilton area teen could be linked to alleged hacking attempts on U.S. and British government websites.

Last week, British authorities charged Ryan Cleary, 19, with five offences under the Computer Misuse Act, according to reports in the Daily Mail, a London newspaper.

Cleary is accused of launching cyber attacks from the Essex home where he lives with his parents. That investigation has apparently moved to the United States, specifically to Ohio on Jackson Road in St. Clair Twp., where a home was searched Monday morning by federal agents.

“I can confirm a federal search warrant was served,” said Michael Brooks, spokesman for the FBI’s Cincinnati office.

Brooks said the search warrant is sealed and that he could not release any details, nor could he confirm it was related to the international hacking investigation. No one was charged after the warrant was served, he said.

Butler County Sheriff’s deputies were on standby outside the house at the time of the search, but the department has no knowledge about the details of the federal investigation, according to Deputy Chief Anthony Dwyer.

One of the charges against Cleary is connected to allegedly bringing down the website of Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency — the U.K.’s FBI equivalent — using a flood of traffic, in what is known as a “distributed denial of service” attack, according to the Daily Mail.

Cleary is suspected of having ties to the Lulz Security hacking collective, which has recently targeted Sony, the CIA website and the U.S. Senate computer system. The news comes as Internet hacking LulzSec took revenge on two people it claimed had “snitched” on them and landed Cleary in custody. One of those two people named is the Hamilton area teen, the Daily Mail reported.

LulzSec denied that Cleary was a member of the group but confirmed it used his computer equipment to host a chatroom.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2168 or lpack@coxohio.com.

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