Soca website attack: Norway arrests two youths

Two teenagers in Norway have been arrested in connection with a series of computer attacks.

Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is believed to have been among their suspected targets. Local reports suggest other victims included the Norwegian Lottery and Germany's Bild newspaper. "We have arrested the two we think were most important in these attacks, but we still want to talk to more people," said Norwegian prosecutor Erik Moestue. "We know Soca was recently attacked, as well as Norwegian and American sites, and that is one of the things that we are looking into." Norway's National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) said the sites had been hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, in which large amounts of data were sent to the owner's servers in an attempt to overwhelm them. It added that the 18- and 19-year-olds were charged at the end of last week following electronic attacks over a period lasting "several weeks". The offence carries a maximum sentence of six years in jail. "The case is still under investigation," added Mr Moestue. "It is still too early to say anything about the motive for the actions." The NCIS would not confirm who had been attacked, but the Norsk Telegrambyra press agency said the country's largest financial services group DNB and its Police Security Service had also been affected. Soca told the BBC last week that it had taken its website offline following a cyber-attack. It said the assault had not posed a security risk, but that it had acted to prevent other clients hosted by its internet service provider from being affected.