FBI charges Anonymous members with PayPal DDoS
The FBI on Wednesday charged 14 people, mostly twenty-somethings, for their alleged involvement in an Anonymous-inspired attack on the PayPal website in December.
The hackivist collective Anonymous issued a call to arms last year after a number of corporate websites, including Visa and MasterCard, cut ties with WikiLeaks after the whistleblower group published secret U.S. diplomatic cables. In the case of PayPal, the online payment company severed its relationship with WikiLeaks after claiming the organization violated its terms of service.
The defendants, who live in nine states and the District of Columbia, were charged with damaging a protected computer and conspiracy, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Prosecutors said the defendants, between Dec. 6 and 10, launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against the PayPal site, parts of which became overwhelmed by the rogue traffic.
