Norwegian teens arrested over SOCA DDoS attack

Norwegian police have charged two teenagers suspected of taking part in denial of service attacks against the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency and other targets.

The unnamed youngsters (aged 18 and 19) are also suspected of attacking the Norwegian financial services group DNB and Germany's Bild newspaper, according to Norwegian reports.

"We have arrested the two we think were most important in these attacks, but we still want to talk to more people," Norwegian prosecutor Erik Moestue told the BBC.

A spokeswoman for Norway's National Criminal Investigation Service confirmed that two suspects had been arrested, questioned and charged over computer hacking offences. She was unable to confirm either the names of the suspects or the sites they had been accused of attacking. Both suspects have been released on bail pending further inquiries.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency was taken offline last week after it was flooded with junk traffic by hacktivists. The police agency said the decision to take the site offline was taken in order to prevent other sites hosted by the same ISP from being affected by the assault. SOCA characterised the attack as a "nuisance" rather than a security threat.

SOCA's website was also hit by a similar denial of service attack last June. A number of UK-based individuals were charged over these assaults but the cases are yet to go to trial. ®