Wickford: Man Admits Cyber Attacks

26 June 2012, 08:13 | Updated: 26 June 2012, 08:15

Two LulzSec hackers have admitted they were behind cyber attacks against the CIA, the NHS and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Ryan Cleary, 20, and Jake Davis, 19, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court, south London, to charges that they carried out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the institutions' websites last year, a court official said.

Other victims of the pair included News International, Arizona State Police, Nintendo, Sony and 20th Century Fox.

But Cleary, from Wickford, Essex, and Davis, from Lerwick, Shetland, denied "posting unlawfully obtained confidential computer data to public websites'' such as LulzSec.com.

Alleged accomplices Ryan Ackroyd, 25, from Mexborough, South Yorkshire, and a 17-year-old from south London, who cannot be named for legal reasons, deny carrying out the DDoS attacks and posting unlawfully obtained material online. They will stand trial on April 8 next year.

Cleary, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, also admitted four separate charges including an attack on Pentagon computers.