Suspected Anonymous hacker arrested after abortion website attack

In the early hours of this morning, police arrested a 27-year-old man, suspected of defacing and hacking into the website of Britain’s largest single abortion provider.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) website was compromised yesterday, with a message from a hacker calling themselves “Pablo Escobar”, and linking themselves to the Anonymous hacktivist group.

For a period of time yesterday, visitors to the BPAS website saw an anti-abortion message.

In a series of tweets, someone using the name “Pablo Escobar” claimed that the names of women who had undergone abortions had been accessed from the BPAS site, and would be released today (Friday).

It appears that the authorities moved quickly to reduce the possibility of personal details of people who had contacted the BPAS site being made public.

According to a news…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.