Police and FBI arrest alleged Anonymous members

Police have arrested more than 20 people in the UK, US and the Netherlands in connection with recent cyber attacks, including an attack on Paypal in December last year.

The Metropolitan Police today announced that it has arrested a 16-year-old youth on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

"He was arrested at an address in south London and remains in custody at a central London police station," the organisation said in a release.

It added that computer equipment was taken from the address for analysis.

At the same time, the FBI said that it has arrested 16 people in connection with December's DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on Paypal, claimed by hacktivist group Anonymous.

This form of attack bombards a web site with requests for information, overloading it, thereby rendering it unreachable for other users.

The group stated that the attack was revenge for Paypal's decision to suspend payments to whistle-blowing site Wikileaks, calling its actions "Operation Avenge Assange".

Twitter user 'The Real Sabu', seen by many as the unofficial spokesman for Anonymous, wrote: "Dedicate sometime (sic) today to the fallen Anons who were arrested today. Reach out to them. Provide them support."

This suggests that law enforcement agencies have targeted the correct individuals in this case.

Last month the Met arrested a man in connection with several high-profile attacks on corporate and government web sites under the Lulzsec banner – Lulzsec is a splinter group of Anonymous.

However, Lulzsec denied that he was part of their group.