Seventeen-year-old arrested over TeamPoison attacks

A teenager has been arrested in Newcastle on suspicion of being part of the TeamPoison hacking gang.

The 17-year-old boy was arrested on Wednesday evening by Scotland Yard officers in connection with various hacking attacks, including some on a web mail server containing personal information about ex-prime minister Tony Blair, as well as attacks on international law enforcement agencies and major international businesses and organisations, ZDNet UK understands.

The boy, who police suspect used the hacker nickname 'MLT' and was a spokesman for TeamPoison, was interviewed at a local police station on offences under the Computer Misuse Act on Wednesday.

Police seized computing equipment, which is now being forensically examined. Officers from the Police Central eCrime Unit and Northumberland Constabulary participated in the raid and arrest.

TeamPoison has claimed responsibility for more than 1,400 offences, including network break-ins "where personal and private information has been illegally extracted from victims in the UK and around the world", the Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Thursday.

The hacking group also claimed to have performed denial-of-service attacks to knock websites and computing systems off the internet.

TeamPoison claimed to have attacked the Anti-Terrorist Hotline in April. Two teenagers were arrested in the West Midlands in April after a denial-of-service attack on the MI6 hotline. TeamPoison hackers say they recorded the reaction of hotline staff to the attack via a hacked server.

'Trick', an alleged member of the group, defaced the website of RIM in August 2011, following the London riots.