Cybercriminals Target UK’s National Crime Agency

Days after the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested six teenagers for allegedly attempting to access a tool used by the hacker group known as Lizard Squad, the agency itself became the target of a cyberattack.

The NCA’s website was down for more than an hour and was the target of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, VentureBeat reported yesterday (Sept. 1).

In DDoS attacks, hackers bombard a targeted website with an overflow of data, eventually causing the entire network to crash.

Lizard Squad took to Twitter shortly after the attack to take credit for the site shutdown.

Stressed out? http://t.co/5631pELDMR #offline pic.twitter.com/hxhAuSdoqq

— Lizard Squad (@LizardLands) September 1, 2015

The NCA quickly fired back with its own statement via Twitter, explaining attacks on its site are inevitable as it is an “attractive target.”

“Attacks on it are a fact of life. DDoS is a blunt form of attack which takes volume and not skill. It isn’t a security breach, and it doesn’t affect our operational capability,” the statement read.

While there is no confirmation that Lizard Squad was actually behind the NCA’s site shutdown yesterday, the timing does strike many as peculiar.

It was just last week that the NCA conducted Operation Vivarium, where warrants were issued and arrests were made in the case of six teens under the suspicion of paying to use hacking group Lizard Squad’s Lizard Stresser tool to take targeted websites offline for up to eight hours at a time.

Organizations believed to be targeted by the men in custody included a national newspaper, a school, gaming companies and online retailers. They are accused of maliciously deploying Lizard Stresser after buying the tool with alternative payment services, such as bitcoin, in an anonymous bid.

Tony Adams, head of investigations at the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, provided the following statement last week:

“By paying a comparatively small fee, tools like Lizard Stresser can cripple businesses financially and deprive people of access to important information and public services. This multi-agency operation illustrates the commitment of the NCA and its partners to pursuing people who think they can criminally disrupt important public services or legitimate businesses.”

“One of our key priorities is to engage with those on the fringes of cybercriminality, to help them understand the consequences of cybercrime and how they can channel their abilities into productive and lucrative legitimate careers,” Adams concluded.

While it remains unclear if yesterday’s attack on NCA is related to the Operation Vivarium arrests that took place last week, rumors of retaliation continue to swirl.

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