Lady Gaga is the latest celebrity to see her social networking accounts hacked by scammers.

One of the true "Twitterati" with over 17 million Twitter followers and 45 million Facebook "Likes", the Bad Romance star fell foul to a hack that saw her fans lured towards a fake iPad 2 giveaway.

Unbeknownst to the singer, her Twitter account posted the message; ""Monsters, I'm giving away FREE iPad2's to each one of you in the spirit of the holidays :)", a seemingly genuine post, considering she uses the name "monsters" to refer to her fanbase.

However, the message also contained a link to a dodgy Blogspot site (which has since been removed) that collected the personal details of her fans.

A similar attack was made on her Facebook account. Two posts were made, one reading "Lady Gaga's new iPad comes out in 3 days!" and another that said: "So for the next 72 hours we will be hosting a massive giveaway to all the Mother Monster fans. Sign up and receive your special Lady Gaga edition iPad in time for the Holidays! For contest rules and registration visit the link below."

Likewise, these links were also scams. Gaga has since re-gained control of her accounts, posting "Phew. The hacking is over! And just in time, I'm on my way to Japan! So excited to spend Xmastime with my TokyoMonsters!"

Lady Gaga would have been quite out of pocket had the offer been real. Had she given each of her Twitter and Facebook fans a free iPad 2, as the posts suggested she would, she'd have racked up a whopping bill from Apple in the region of $25 billion!

Via: BBC

Sesame Street's YouTube channel, a popular online destination for kids, was hacked in the afternoon of Sunday 16th October, with the entire contents of the video-hosting page replaced with hardcore pornography.

Accessible for around 20 minutes before YouTube pulled the page, hackers had also altered the channel's appearance so that famous Sesame Street characters had a shocked appearance on their faces, while the tagline "It's where porn lives" was added underneath the main logo. The channel's profile description was also changed so that it read:

"WHO DOESN'T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON'T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE...LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!"

The attack was thought to be an anonymous attempt to frame regular YouTube gaming contributor MrEdxwx, who has denied involvement.

"I did not hack Sesame Street. I am an honsest (sic) youtuber. I work hard to make quality gameplay videos. AND MOST IMPORTANT I RESPECT COMMUNITY GUIDELINES," said MrEdxwx.

"The truth of the matter is that the channel is regularly visited by young children, and parents trust that the page will be safe for them to view," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at web safety specialists Sophos.

"Attacks like this prove that websites with particularly vulnerable audiences need to be monitored regularly, and protected with the highest possible security controls. In addition, parents need to be extra vigilant about keeping an eye on the websites their children are visiting - and remember that even the seemingly most innocent websites can be compromised."

No-one has yet come forward to claim responsibility for the attack.

Name: Acronis True Image Home 2012

Type: PC data back-up utility

System requirements: Click here for full details

Price: £39.95 (£23.95 if upgrading from previous edition)

Backing-up PC data can be a chore, but it's a necessary pain if you hope to protect your sensitive and precious files from the odd ghost in the system. The Acronis True Image Home 2012 suite aims to take the hassle out of backing up your files, while also having enough flexibility to sate the appetite of even the most avid PC tinkerer. Read on for our verdict.

Rather than focussing on one form of data back-up, the Acronis True Image Home 2012 suite offers the complete package. Be it online back-ups, file-based or continuous incremental back-ups of whole drives as they update, drive image creation or images of partitions, the software pops all methods into a single neat product.

Whether you're using True Image Home 2012's Nonstop Back-up feature to keep your My Documents folder safely duplicated as you pop new files inside, or using an Acronis True Image Online account to synchronise local folders with a network or a laptop (which follows similar concepts to those that use the Dropbox service), there's a solution for pretty much every situation.

It's all presented in such a way as to be make it comfortable to use for even those who find the thought of back-up processed intimidating. A re-vamped interface opens with a "Get Started", which offers tutorials on "How to back up?", "When to recover?" and "What is sync?". Whatever your skill level, Acronis have done a fairly good job of walking you through each step of each back-up process.

Of course, if you're familiar with the concepts of preserving your files, you can dive straight in with the Backup and recovery" tab and picking from options like: "Disk and partition", "Online", "File", "Email" and "Nonstop backup". Again the interface is clear, letting you easily pick source and destination locations, and in the case of Online and File back-up processes, offering check-box style controls to select the precise files that need copying.

It's all highly configurable too, letting you set back-up schedules, password protect resulting archives and (in the case of the online back-up tools) set network bandwidth limits so that your uploads to the Acronis servers don't totally drain your internet speeds. Archives are created in manageable sizes, and the True Image Home 2012 processes can run happily in the background without hogging too much of your system's resources. The program had a few issues recognising a Crucial solid-state drive we were testing with that hadn't been assigned a drive letter, but it's a problem that seemed unique to our set-up.

Those looking for very specific back-up tools will be pleased to discover True Home Image 2012's Email Back-up and Try&Decide tools. Outlook users in particular will benefit from Email Back-Up, letting you quickly and effectively archive all inbox messages and contacts, saving invaluable stuff in the case of a disaster be you a business owner working from home or simply a person who'd simply die if they lost their email-archived holiday snaps. Try&Decide was our personal favourite tool, letting you road-test risky installations (say a work-in-progress driver or a download from an untrusted source) and then revert back quickly and simply to a prior state if you encounter any problems.

These are among a long list of features already present in previous versions of True Image Home 2012. Managing all these options could potentially become a pain, but again a clear UI means that it's simply a matter of checking a list in the Back-up and Recovery tab to keep on top of everything lined up.

Verdict:

While the computer whiz-kids amongst us will already have fool-proof methods for manually creating back-up copies of their valuable files, True Image Home 2012 makes the whole process much simpler for newbies. There's also enough smart features (like Try and Decide) to make even those with their own tried-and-tested back-up methods consider giving this a try. It's not without its quirks, and the full suite of online support isn't the most competitively priced, but it comes strongly recommended nonetheless..

An automated Skype call has been plaguing users of the video calling service over the last few days, encouraging them to download a dubious anti-virus program in order to protect themselves from non-existant threats.

A computer-generated voice has been contacting users, stating that their systems are vulnerable before directing them to a website that asks for their personal details before charging them for a piece of mostly useless malware protection.

The voice messages in the automated calls say:

"Attention: this is an automated computer system alert. Your computer protection service is not active. To activate computer protection, and repair your computer, go to [LINK]"

"As more and more people become acquainted with the tricks used by internet scammers and cybercriminals, scammers are pressed to find new social engineering tricks in the hope of duping the unwary. Fake anti-virus or 'scareware' is an increasingly common example of this, and takes advantage of those worried enough to visit such dubious sites," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"Personally, I wouldn't want to trust any product which uses Skype spam techniques to advertise itself, and presents itself in such an underhand manner. Skype users need to be vigilant in their privacy settings to combat this, and unsolicited Skype calls can be stopped by amending privacy settings so that only users listed in your contacts can get in touch with you."

Hit the video above to see the attack in action, courtesy of Naked Security. The guy gets pretty annoyed, so be ready for some strong language.

Anonymous, the hacking collective behind the recent attack on the Syrian Ministry of Defence website and thought to have played a hand in the major PlayStation 3 PSN outage earlier this year, are planning a major attack on Facebook for Novemeber 5th 2011.

The "medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed" claim the group, spreading thier plans via a YouTube video:

Part of the anti-sec movement that aim for complete transparency of personal digital information, they claim that "Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria."

The date is chosen to coincide with Guy Fawkes Night (or Fireworks Night as it is otherwise known), named after the infamous member of the "Gunpowder Plot" who in 1605 planned to Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James. In the cult graphic novel/movie "V for Vendetta", the anonymous activist V wears a Guy Fawkes mask, which has since become a symbol of both the Anonymous hacking collective and anonymous protest and activism worldwide.

All the Guy Fawkes references don't bode well for Anonymous however; Fawkes met a sticky end at the hands of torturers and was executed after the Gunpowder Plot failed.

Scroll down for the full transcription of the threat.

Operation Facebook

We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us

Harry Potter fans looking to get early access to the Pottermore social network ahead of its October opening are being tricked by dark web magic. No, it's not Voldemort hitting the internet killswitch, but a gang of scammers selling fake "early access" accounts to Pottermore.

Christopher Boyd of GFI labs has uncovered a number of deathly plots targetting Pot-heads (as we like to call Potter fans here at Tech Digest). From info harvesting surveys to spam marketing and bogus account sales, there's enough ne'er do wells exploiting Pottermore to fill the whole of Azkaban by the looks of things.

"You can expect more hacked sites serving Malware alongside poisoned search engine results - both text and image. If your kids are happily babbling on about the joys of Pottermore, it may well be worth sitting down with them and pointing out the types of shenanigans they need to avoid," said Boyd.

Due to launch in October, Pottermore will be the new online home for Harry Potter, as well as acting as a social network for fans of the boy wizard to interact through. As well as offering exclusive content and the possibility of new stories from the wizarding world, Pottermore will be the only place where you can download official ebook versions of the popular series of novels.

Sanford Wallace, the self proclaimed "King of Spam" is facing as much as forty years worth of jail time following his continued Facebook and email phishing scams.

Hitting over half a million Facebook users between 2008 and 2009, leading to 27 million spam messages, Wallace has now been indicted by a California court on three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt.

Three seperate attacks were all it took to gain access to the half-million Facebook accounts Wallace used to send his phising messages around.

If Wallace is found guilty of all charges he also faces as much as $2 million worth of fines in addition to his incarceration. The charges are all the more severe considering Wallace has been found in violation of a court order banning him from Facebook in 2009. Wallace had been accessing the social network under the pseudoymn David Sinful-Saturdays Fredericks.

Wallace was also the brains behind the notorious CyberPromotions junk email ring that sent 30 million-odd emails in the late 1990's.

The Sun website has yet again fallen foul to a hacking attack, which may have lead to the release of thousands of users' sensitive information being released online.

The attack has been attributed to a hacker known as Batteye, who claimed responsibility for the breach in a Pastebin post. The hacker stated that:

"We will begin today by presenting to you, various files obtained from the Sun, a company within the News Corp group. We will continue, then, by exposing the world for what it is; a less than perfect place where we cannot trust those who we ask to protect our information."

News International, owners of The Sun, have responded by calling in the police and information commissioner to investigate the breach. It is thought that readers' names, addresses, dates of birth, emails and phone numbers were accessed, though password and financial information remained secure.

The news couldn't come at a worse time for News International, who have already had to wipe egg off of their faces after LulzSec hackers posted a fake story on The Sun's homepage claiming that owner Rupert Murdoch had died after a drug overdose, all in the wake of the phone hacking scandal that has rocked the massive media empire to its core.

"Cybercriminals will be rubbing their hands in glee at getting hold of data such as names, email addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security specialists Sophos.

"The stolen information can be used to target innocent individuals. For instance, a scammer could email a beauty contest applicant, trick them into believing that it was the newspaper contacting them and attempt to steal money or further information."

"Large scale, high profile data breaches continue to hit the headlines and companies really need to take heed about what's going on, and consider the security of the information they store on their systems," Cluley continued.

"Questions will inevitably be asked to why the sensitive information about readers and competition entrants wasn't safely stored using strong encryption."

A 19 year old from the Shetland Islands has been arrested in a raid by the Metropolitan Police, believed to be a "spokesperson" for the hacking collectives LulzSec and Anonymous.

It is thought that the teen arrested is the member of the groups known as "Topiary", a leading figure in the scene whose high-profile hacking victims have included Sony's PlayStation Network and The Sun website.

"The man arrested is believed to be linked to an ongoing international investigation in to the criminal activity of the so-called "hacktivist" groups Anonymous and LulzSec, and uses the online nickname "Topiary" which is presented as the spokesperson for the groups," reads a Scotland Yard statement,

"Today's operation is linked to PCeU's [Police Central e-Crime Unit] ongoing investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group."

Heading over to Topiary's Twitter profile sees the hack-supporter's bio read a: "simple prankster turned swank garden hedge. Worked with Anonymous, LulzSec, and other such paragons of intense cyber victory. You are free."

The last tweet from the account prior to Wednesday's arrest came on July 21st, and simply read "You can't arrest an idea".

Via: Guardian

It's been a truly sad weekend for news. From the tragic extremist attacks in Norway of Anders Behring Breivik that have left nearly 100 people dead to the sudden, untimely death of jazz superstar Amy Winehouse, many tears have been shed around the world.

As with every major world event however, this weekend's tragedies have not passed without mercenary tactics from opportunistic criminals online. There has reportedly been a massive jump in social networking malware and scam attacks, as the likes of Facebook and Twitter are flooded with fake news sources related to the sad stories.

"The tragic events that occurred at the end of last week with the Norway attacks and the sudden death of the British singer Amy Winehouse has spurred even more unwanted scam activities in cyberspace. Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network has detected scams propagating in Facebook pretending to offer a 'look at footage of Amy Winehouse just moments after her death', and similar," said Elad Sharf of Websense Security Labs.

"The truth is there is no such video footage, however video's are an especially popular lure. The type of scam use here is a 'survey scam' where users are lured to complete a survey and in return promised to be shown an 'exclusive' video or footage. Completion of the surveys merely puts data (and therefore money) in the scammer's pockets and obviously as there is no such footage, users that completed the survey aren't shown the promised video.

"Please be cautious when clicking on breaking news stories. Social networks and search engines are all heavily abused by malware authors. If you want to read more about a story it could be safer to go directly to a trusted news page".

Patrick Runald, Websense Security Labs senios manager added:

"Criminals know how to take advantage of disasters and the hottest news items to get people to click on infected links. Tragedy is just one type of news that the bad guys use to exploit, compromise and infect your computer. Videos are an especially popular lure, we saw the same thing when Osama bin Laden died and during the time Casey Anthony was acquitted.

"During times of crisis or breaking news, your best bet is to stick with the largest news organizations you trust. Avoid the potentially dangerous halls of search engines and social media sites, which are more susceptible to compromise and manipulation".

LulzSec, the computer hacking collective thought to have disbanded after hitting a string of high profile targets including Sony, have returned to strike at News International in protest towards the recent phone hacking scandal.

Targetting The Sun newspaper's website, the group redirected the tabloid's homepage to a fake story reporting the death of News International owner Rupert Murdoch. It claimed the media mogul had died from a drug overdose. Lulzsec also redirected the paper's official Twitter feed to the group's @LulzSec account.

"We have owned Sun/News of the World - that story is simply phase 1 - expect the lulz to flow in coming days," threatened the LulzSec Twitter feed before jokingly adding:

"Hello everyone that wanted to read The Sun! How is your day? Good? Good."

It's not merely faked news stories that LulzSec are touting however. They claim to have nabbed plenty of personal information on News International employees, with the group posting The Sun journalists phone numbers online, as well as email details of former News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

LulzSec claim to have plenty more sensitive information to share too, so expect to see more headaches for News International head online in the coming hours and days.

Via: Tech Crunch

Hackers have hit some pretty high-profile targets in the last few months, but perhaps none more worrying than the beating heart of the USA's national defenses, the Pentagon.

Deputy Defebse Secretary William Lynn revealed yesterday that the Pentagon suffered one of the worst cyber attacks in its history this March, with 24,000 sensitive files compromised.

This is nothing new for the Pentagon. Lynn revealed that many defense areas have been infiltrated by hackers over the years including "our most sensitive systems, such asaircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems and network security protocols."

"The cyber exploitation being perpetrated against the defense industry cuts across a wide swath of crucial military hardware," said Lynn.

"Current countermeasures have not stopped this outflow of sensitive information. We need to do more to guard our digital storehouses of design innovation."

As such, the Pentagon are now working with a "handful" of defense companies to strengthen their cyber security flaws. Lynn revealed that "terrabytes" of information have been stolen by hackers over the years.

It is not yet known whether this most recent attack on the Pentagon was funded by an foreign government or independent criminal hackers.

PayPal is the latest high-profile web brand to be targeted by hackers.

The online money-handling service last night had its @paypaluk Twitter handle hacked by what appeared to be a disgruntled user. From 8pm until midnight the Twitter feed was used to spout a tirade of anti-PayPal tweets, including sending links to the PayPal naysaying website PayPal Sucks.

"This account was hacked earlier. We have it in our control now. Your personal data is still 100% safe, hack occurred on Twitter not PayPal," read a tweet once PayPal had regained control.

Despite these reassurances though, the PayPal Twitter feed is still being bombarded by messages from concerned customers who feel their accounts and money may now too be vulnerable.

It's quite the blow for PayPal. Their whole business relies upon the trust their users put into them to protect their funds. And while it wasn't the main PayPal service hit, it still call into question the PayPal security systems. A hack like this totally undermines the trust PayPal's users put into the service.

AnonymousIRC, the Twitter account used by formers members of the LulzSec and Anonymous hacking groups, have claimed that an Apple server's security measures have been breached, revealing sensitive username and password information as part of the AntiSec hacking campaign.

A posting on a PasteBin page shows the list of information nabbed from the server hack.

Before you start running to the Apple store to berate their geniuses however, note that the server attacked was merely used to collect survey data from Apple's Business Intelligence group. Your iTunes account details still remain safe.

Or at least for the time being. The Twitter account also revealed that Apple may also be a potential target for a more focussed and damaging attack in the future. "Not being so serious, but well, Apple could be target too. Don't worry, we are busy elsewhere," reads the Twitter post.

A Lebanese hacker going by the name idac_hacker also claims to have found security holes in Apple's network defenses. He states however that he is not affiliated with LulzSec or Anonymous.

No comment from Apple has been issued yet.

Via: PC World

Ryan Cleary, the British teenager arrested last week in connection to the LulzSec hacking collective who ran riot over the internet during the past few weeks before swiftly disbanding, has been granted bail provided he stays offline.

the internet ban includes a confiscation of all of Cleary's web-enabled gadgets, including his computer, PS3 and iPhone.

Accused of involvement in a string of DDoS attacks on websites, Cleary denies all charges, while members of the LulzSec group have now stated that the teen merely owned servers that hosted a handful of the group's sites.

Since his arrest, Cleary has been diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, a form of autism.

"[Cleary] will now be provided with the professional support that he needs. His obvious intelligence can now be channelled into a worthwhile pursuit," his solicitors told the Financial Times.

LulzSec were responsible for a number of high-profile website hacks, including Sony Entertainment, Nintendo, the NHS, Bethesda Softworks and the Arizona Law Enforcement agency.

Just as one hacking collective calls time on its operations, another hacking upstart lands himself a job at Facebook.

George "GeoHot" Hotz, famed for his PS3 and iPhone hacks, and the subsequent court cases that followed his exploits, is reported to have foundabove-board employment at the world's largest social network.

Hotz is said to have been offered other hacking challenges and job opportunities, but has decided to keep a low profile as he "doesn't want that much attention" and is getting on at Facebook rather well.

Hotz has apparently held an undisclosed post at Facebook since May, revealing his position to pals on June 17th.

The world may have lost a (pretty poor) rapper, but Facebook seem to have bagged themselves a decent programmer.

Via: Tech Unwrapped

LulzSec, the hacking collective that have courted media controversy for the last 50 days, have decided to call it a day.

After popping a final, virus-filled release of data via a torrent, the group are now disbanding as the media and authorities close increasingly in upon them.

"For the past 50 days we've been disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could. All to selflessly entertain others - vanity, fame, recognition, all of these things are shadowed by our desire for that which we all love. The raw, uninterrupted, chaotic thrill of entertainment and anarchy. It's what we all crave, even the seemingly lifeless politicians and emotionless, middle-aged self-titled failures. You are not failures. You have not blown away. You can get what you want and you are worth having it, believe in yourself," the statement reads.

"While we are responsible for everything that The Lulz Boat is, we are not tied to this identity permanently. Behind this jolly visage of rainbows and top hats, we are people. People with a preference for music, a preference for food; we have varying taste in clothes and television, we are just like you."

The statement then takes a little bit of a strange turn:

Even Hitler and Osama Bin Laden had these unique variations and style, and isn't that interesting to know? The mediocre painter turned supervillain liked cats more than we did,"

Not quite sure what they're getting at there, but they finish off in rallying style:

"We truly believe in the AntiSec movement. We believe in it so strongly that we brought it back, much to the dismay of those looking for more anarchic lulz. We hope, wish, even beg, that the movement manifests itself into a revolution that can continue on without us. The support we've gathered for it in such a short space of time is truly overwhelming, and not to mention humbling. Please don't stop. Together, united, we can stomp down our common oppressors and imbue ourselves with the power and freedom we deserve."

Thought to number some 6 or so people, LulzSec attacked Sony Entertainment websites, Nintendo, the NHS and the Arizona Law Enforcement agency, among other targets.

News International publications including The Sun's online presence and The Times are reportedly the latest targets for hackers following the recent wave of attacks on major web destinations.

Initially, the attacks were being attributed to LulzSec, the hacking collective whose recent high-profile attacks have seen them garner lots of media coverage. It was thought that they were responding to the coverage of the arrest of Ryan Cleary on June 22nd, one of their number who has since been charged with 5 offences, accused of DDoS on SOCA, the BPI and IFPI.

However, LulzSec have taken to their Twitter account to deny involvement.

"Clearing up yet more failed attempts at framing: we didn't attack The Sun or The Times in any way with any kind of DDoS attack. Cheers," reads the tweet on the LulzSec account.

Seemingly becoming increasingly frustrated with the media coverage following their actions, a later tweet read: "A shout-out to all the real journalists on the Internet; writing to give people the real facts, not writing to meet the evening deadline."

LulzSec have recently claimed responsibility for attacks on the NHS, Sony Entertainment and Nintendo.

Kaspersky Lab have revealed deatils on their latest security software releases for 2012. Anti-Virus 2012 and Internet Security 2012 combine both cloud-hosted and local PC protection to offer what they feel is the most advanced PC security set-up in the world, able to protect users from the growing threat of malware found on Twitter, Facebook and serch engine results, and dreaded "Black Hole SEO".

The press release notes the following key features across the two security software suites:

- Cloud-based protection. The exchange of information between computer-installed software and centralised, cloud-based databases ensures that users are always protected against the very latest threats and spam. Protection arrives within seconds without users having to store a large amount of data on their computers. Databases located in the cloud also provide real-time protection against new spam emails. This helps Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2012 to adapt quickly to ever-changing spammer tactics.

- Internet link threat warning. These warnings alert users to links that could pose a threat, for example by redirecting users to fraudulent, malicious or spammer websites.

- New user interface. The user interface remains straightforward, intuitive and user-friendly, but now also includes animated graphics.

- A program activity monitoring module. "System Watcher" tracks program activity. If suspicious behavior is detected, the offending program and related applications can be removed, and changes made to the PC undone with a single click.

"More than 300 million users worldwide depend on Kaspersky Lab to protect their computers and online activity. We are committed to providing them with the best protection available. The new 2012 versions take home PC security to the next level," said Eugene Kaspersky, CEO and co-founder of Kaspersky Lab.

"They feature world-class technologies that harness the power of the cloud, but also ensure PCs are fully protected when they are not connected to the internet. This hybrid approach will combat even the most complex of threats. At the same time, these products are now simpler, faster and more user-friendly than ever before."

A 19 year-old from Essex, England, believed to be the leader of the LulzSec hacking group, has been arrested today as part of a joint operation by the FBI and Scotland Yard.

The arrest comes just hours after LulzSec used their Twitter stream to threaten the release of "Anti-Security" data leaks, potentially including the entirety of the UK's 2011 census data, in WikiLeaks-style torrent "payloads".

"The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial of service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group," said a Scotland Yard spokesman.

"Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing."

LulzSec have previously claimed to have been behind hacking attacks on Sony's entertainment sites, the NHS, Nintendo, Bethesda Softworks and various other gaming websites.