Teenage Brit charged with denial-of-service attacks, and bomb threats

If you have a 15-year-old son who is into computers, do you know what he’s up to in his bedroom right now?

Well, you might want to hope that he’s visiting a porn site – because there are certainly much worse things he could be up to.

Devon & Cornwall Police in the UK say that a 15-year-old youth from the Plympton area of Plymouth has been charged in connection with a series of denial-of-service attacks on websites based in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

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In addition, the teenager has been charged with two offences in relation to bomb hoaxes directed against North American airlines that were posted on social media sites.

The 15-year-old, who has not been named, has been bailed to appear before Plymouth Youth Court on December 18th.

Whenever stories emerge that a teenager might have been involved in cybercrime, the tabloid newspapers often try to paint a picture of the suspect as a social loner with advanced computing skills.

However, the truth is that you don’t have to be a genius to launch a denial-of-service attack or to post a bomb threat on Twitter.

According to a BBC News report, the youth is not believed to have been involved in the high profile hacking of mobile phone operator TalkTalk, which has also seen a number of arrests in recent weeks.

_{flickr photo shared by gagilas under a Creative Commons ( BY-SA )}

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus 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 security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.