FBI hack: Scottish 15-year-old arrested on suspicion of gaining access to US federal systems

A joint operation between the FBI and Police Scotland has resulted in the arrest of a 15-year-old suspect accused of involvement in hacking into US federal computer systems. Scottish law enforcement confirmed to the IBTimes.co.uk that the teenage had been arrested and later released on bail.

Talking of the incident, a Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Following a search of a property in the Glasgow area on Tuesday, 16 February, a 15-year-old male was arrested in connection with alleged offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. He has since been released and is the subject of a report to the procurator fiscal. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

According to the Daily Record newspaper, FBI investigators travelled to Scotland to oversee the operation and sat in during the interview process with the suspect, who reportedly now faces the threat of extradition and imprisonment in the US.

The news follows the arrest of a 16-year-old on 9 February in East Midlands believed to have had involvement with a slew of cyber attacks against US targets including the breach of CIA director John Brennen's personal email account last October and, most recently, the hack at the Department of Justice (DoJ) that exposed more than 25,000 federal credentials.

The South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) confirmed to IBTimes.co.uk at the time it had "arrested someone recently in regards to computing offences". While UK police would not release the full identity of the teenager, according to technology website Motherboard the suspect is the notorious hacker who uses the pseudonym 'Cracka' and is part of the notorious 'Crackas with Attitude' (CWA) hacking collective.

Last year, CWA took credit for the breach against the personal email account of Brennan, the content of which was quickly published in full by whistle-blowing platform WikiLeaks. While most recently, on 8 February, thousands of sensitive US government credentials were leaked online by an unnamed hacker who was publishing links under the Twitter handle @DotGovs, which has since been suspended. The data dump boasted names, job titles, email addresses and telephone numbers of staff from the US Justice Department and was quickly followed by a second leak containing a massive cache containing 20,000 suspected FBI credentials.