Spain Arrests Three Over ‘Anonymous’ Group’s Cyber-Attacks

Spanish police arrested
three suspected members of the online hacking group Anonymous, which has taken
credit for carrying out cyber-attacks on governments and companies including
Sony Corp. and MasterCard Inc.

Anonymous hacked the
websites of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain’s second-biggest bank,
and Enel SpA, the Italian owner of Spanish power company Endesa, police said in
a statement in Madrid today. The arrests follow similar actions against
Anonymous in the U.S. and U.K. in December and January.

As part of Spain’s probe
of the group, authorities had to overcome “complicated security measures
taken by its members to protect its anonymity,” according to the police
statement. Anonymous previously hacked the websites of the governments of Iran,
Egypt, Libya and Algeria, police said.

Anonymous, composed of
hundreds of hackers and activists in several countries, gained attention in
December when it targeted EBay Inc.’s PayPal unit, Visa Inc. and other
companies deemed hostile to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group that published
leaked U.S. military documents and diplomatic communications on its website.

The arrests will have
“little overall impact” in slowing the group’s activities because
many of the accused hackers are minors and are widely dispersed geographically,
said John D’Arcy, an assistant professor of information-technology management
at the University of Notre Dame.

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