A 15 year old boy arrested for hacking TalkTalk

Scotland Yard has arrested a 15 year old boy in the Northern Ireland in connection with the hacking incident that breached the information stored with TalkTalk a United Kingdom based broadband and phone service provider.

The company has over 4 million customers across the United Kingdom and the attack on their website resulted in the breach of sensitive information of their customers. Consequent of the attack, the metropolitan police raided a house in Antrim County and arrested the boy on the suspicion of conducting the hack. He is charged for the offenses covered under the Computer Misuse Act.

The attack initially was considered grave and the company lost its market share value by 12 percent. However, later Dido Harding, the CEO of the company stated that the attack was not of very serious nature. Earlier it was thought that sensitive information such as the banking details of the customers could have been lost in the attack. But later it was found by the company that even if the data was last, it was only partial and did not comprise much of the information. For instance, the credit card data if stolen, would have XXXX instead of the numbers which means that this information is meaningless for stealing funds.

The boy is under the custody of the Police of Northern Ireland and is being investigated. There is ongoing inquiry into the incident and the premises from where the boy was arrested is continued being searched.

The investigation is conducted jointly by the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). Such attacks are of serious nature and the companies can potentially lose billions in damages caused due to the breach of the data of their customers.