Spanish National Police, in co-operation with Europol, Tuesday arrested four persons claiming to be part of the Anonymous hacker collective.
The arrests are a result of Operation Thunder, an investigation that began in June into a group police believe hacked into Spanish government websites and databases.
The four men are “responsible for a number of DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks, web defacements and publication on the internet of Spanish police officers personal information,” according to a news release. One of the men arrested, known as “Thunder” is believed to be responsibly for administering the secure communication networks used by Anonymous.
The servers were hosted in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, but they were controlled remotely from Spain. According to Europol, the ‘hacktivist’ operatives also have links to South American hackers, which are being investigation by the Spanish police and Interpol in conjunction with the Europol Cyber Crime Centre.