A 16-year old boy alleged to be part of the Anonymous hacking group has been arrested in South London.
The teenager, who has not yet been named, is believed to have broken the Computer Misuse Act 1990. The arrest is part of a crackdown by the FBI on the hacking group, which in the past year has admitted launching attacks on the websites of a number of large corporations, governments and even the Church of Scientology.
Mastercard and Visa were among those that suffered at the hands of Anonymous, although these attacks were in retaliation after the firms revealed they were drawing support for whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks after it attempted to publish secret US diplomatic cables.
The arrest comes as 14 people in the US were also detained by the FBI in connection with an attack on PayPal, which Anonymous is thought to be behind. They have been charged with conspiracy, which has a maximum jail term of five years, and intentional damage from a protected computer, which has a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.
Anonymous recently joined forces with LulzSec, which is believed to be behind some recent high-profile attacks on websites belonging to the CIA and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) , to target the world's governments.
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