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Friday, March 29, 2024

Teen hacker believed to have planned new attack

Police think that a 17-year-old Norwegian who last week pulled off one of the most massive cyber attacks in Norway ever was planning a new attack when they arrested him in his room at home in Bergen. His computer was seized to preserve evidence and his home raided.

More than a half-dozen police investigators and computer technicians took part in the raid, reported local newspaper Bergens Tidende. The boy, who has not been publicly identified in mainstream media, confessed to the attacks and was arrested “without any drama,” according to police.

He’d already managed to knock the websites of Norway’s central bank, most major Norwegian banks, airlines and large telecoms firms Telenor and Netcom offline earlier in the week. His defense attorney declined to reveal his motives but claimed his client was “sorry” for the damage he’d caused and “realized the seriousness of it.”

Police believe he acted alone in setting off the DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, which involves overloading server capacity and, one expert told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (DN), can be launched “nearly by anyone as a poor man’s weapon to carry out hacktivism (social activism via hacking).” Vidar Sandland of NorSIS (The Norwegian Center for Information Security) told DN it’s “extremely difficult” for any company or website to protect themselves against such attacks.

Several of the businesses hit in last week’s attack are calling for strong punishment because of the consequences of the vandalism involved. Because the boy is underage, though, he’s expected to only be sentenced to a term of community service and likely will avoid jail.

newsinenglish.no staff

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