Two men have confessed to launching a series of computer hacking attacks on the web sites of major US and UK institutions, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Ryan Clearly, 21, of Essex and Jake Davis, 19, of Shetland, targeted a range of sites with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks – flooding web sites with traffic to make them crash – including the Britain’s National Health Service, News International, Sony, Nintendo, Arizona State Police and film studio 20th Century Fox.
Pentagon attacks
The Guardian newspaper reported that both men appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court yesterday, pleading guilty to a series of charges. Mr Cleary also confessed to separate attacks on US Air Force agency computers based at the Pentagon.
But both denied allegations that confidential data was posted on file sharing web sites – such as The Pirate Bay – to encourage offences contrary to the Serious Crime Act.
Mr Clearly and Mr Davis – who both admitted to being part of Lulzsec, an offshoot of the Anonymous ‘hacktivist’ group – will stand trail on 8 April next year, along with alleged hacker Ryan Ackroyd, 25, and an unnamed 17-year-old from south London.