Topiary: did police arrest the wrong man in LulzSec investigation?

Since the British police arrested a teenager yesterday in connection with the hacktivist activities of LulzSec and Anonymous, I’ve been asked, time and time again, the same question:

Have the cops got the right man?
Have they arrested the “real” Topiary?

It seems that the reason why they’re asking is that folks are supicious that LulzSec could have pulled a fast one – and deliberately tricked the computer crime authorities into believing that someone entirely different is the real “Topiary”.

In other words, the man arrested in Shetland could be a fall guy.

The main proponent of this theory is a blog article published on The DailyTech website by a chap called Jason…

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.