News / Hacker Jake Davis now faces US charges
FORMER Shetland resident Jake Davis arrested last year on computer hacking charges now faces conviction in a US court after being named as one of five people alleged to have hacked into security, entertainment and government agencies.
The 19 year old who grew up on the isle of Yell already faces several charges in the UK for activity carried out for the hacking group LulzSec under the name Topiary. He was arrested in Lerwick last summer.
On Tuesday he was charged in the US with two counts of conspiracy to hack into computers.
The charges follow the arrest of Hector Xavier Monsegur, reputed to be the head of LulzSec, who went under the name of Sabu.
Monsegur secretly pled guilty to 12 charges of computer hacking conspiracy and other crimes at a Manhattan court in August, including online attacks on Paypal, Mastercard, Fox Broadcasting Company, Sony and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Now the FBI has said the 28 year old New York-based Puerto Rican was working for them and has led them to arrest members of the hacking groups LulzSec, Anonymous, Internet Feds and AntiSec.
Allegations being made as a result of Monsegur’s arrest include Davis and others hacking into the website of the Irish political party Fine Gael, the security company HB Gary Inc, and stealing confidential data relating to 70,000 potential contestants on the Fox TV show X Factor between December 2010 and May 2011.
Those attacks were carried out as Internet Feds, the allegations say, which led to the formation of LulzSec, who went on to attack PBS and Sony. A video game company Bethseda was also attacked, they claim.
Jake Davis was being interviewed on Tuesday by the police in the UK along with fellow accused Ryan Ackroyd, 23, from Doncaster, who had the online name Kayla.
He is due to appear in Southwark Crown Court later this year for a string of charges, including hacking into the website of the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
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