Anonymous and LulzSec Target PayPal, Scotland Yard Makes Arrest

After exchanging words with the FBI over the recent arrest of 16 people alleged to have been involved in a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on PayPal back in December 2010, Anonymous and LulzSec have posted another joint statement that lambasts the FBI for their handling of the aforementioned arrests, and heaps scorn on PayPal for bowing to pressure from authorities to shut down PayPal donation services provided to Wikileaks back in December 2010.

The statement criticizes the FBI for treating what the groups believe where peaceful participants of the December 2010 PayPal attack who were “adding one's voice to a chorus” and participating in a “digital sit-in with Low Orbit Ion Cannon.” (A “Low Orbit Ion Cannon,” or LOIC, is a public domain application that can be used to perform a DDoS attack on a specific site or webserver when used by a large group of people) as more serious cybercriminals, such as individuals that are “controlling a large botnet of infected computers.” The individuals charged in recent weeks by the FBI can face up to more than a dozen years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

LulzSec and Anonymous singled out PayPal for more scorn, stating that the online payment service was a “corrupt and greedy organization” and encouraged PayPal users to “immediately close their accounts and consider an alternative.” A tweet from a Twitter account affiliated with Anonymous urged PayPal users to close their accounts and post screenshots of their account closures with the #OpPayPal hashtag:

According to a post by Kevin Poulsen in Wired’s Threat Level blog, the FBI is also investigating a list of more than 1,000 IP addresses that PayPal provided to the bureau that generated the most protect traffic in the December 2010 DDoS attack against PayPal.

In related news, Scotland Yard reported announced earlier today that it had arrested a 19-year old man who used the online handle “Topiary” and frequently served as a spokesperson for Anonymous and LulzSec. According to Scotland Yard, the individual was “arrested at a residential address in the Shetland Islands and is currently being transported to a police station in central London. A search is ongoing at the address.”

Any comments on these recent LulzSec/Anonymous developments? Feel free to add a comment to this blog post or start up a discussion on Twitter.