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Brazilian script kiddie arrested in Japan

'Member of Cyber Lord' defacement gang

A Brazilian teenager has been arrested in Japan last Friday on suspicion of membership of an international hacking group.

Japanese police believe the unnamed 17 year-old is an active member of a gang of Web site defacers called Cyber Lords, which is blamed for the defacement in recent months of 1,032 Web sites in 33 countries.

Japanese investigators have tracked the group's activities since March, following a tip-off from South Korean police via Interpol. Sites in Japan, the US, Taiwan, the Netherlands and South Korea have been hit by the group, according to Tokoyo police, the Japan Times reports.

The arrested teenager is suspected of hacking into the Web sites of a computer services firm, a private high school in Tokoyo and Kyoto University Hospital since September last year.

He is suspected of breaking Japanese laws prohibiting unauthorised computer access.

The Brazilian teen reportedly told Japanese investigators that his group has seven other members in countries including the US, Brazil and Portugal.

Police told the Japan Times that the 17 year-old, who works as a temporary worker and lives in the city of Otawara in central Japan, is the first suspected member of the Cyber Lords gang to be arrested.

Investigators said the group took advantage of lax corporate security to break into web sites and deface them with messages in either English or Portuguese. The group commonly signs its name on defaced sites and posts the names of other web systems it has broken into, a factor that no doubt made the police investigation that much easier. ®

External Links

Teen hacker identified as Cyber Lord member, the Japan Times (in English)
Cyber Lords (AKA Bug Travel) used a well known flaw with a Web admin tool called CPanel to break into some sites, according to posts on security bulletin boards earlier this year.
Defacements by Cyber Lords, as recorded by defacement archive Zone-H. Most of the sites hit are running Windows. Defacements indicate the group weren't the biggest fans of US president George W.

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