UPDATE: The two teenagers arrested by Gardai yesterday in connection with the hack on Fine Gael’s website earlier this year were released at lunchtime today without charge.
The site was defaced in January in the runup to the general election, and the logo of the Anonymous hacktivist collective was put in place of the political party’s messages on the homepage.
The amended text read: “Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP!”
At the bottom of the page ran the words “owned by Raepsauce and Palladium”. It later emerged that a file containing personal information about 2,000 people, including mobile phone numbers, IP addresses and email addresses, was taken from the site.
Houses searched, computers seized in hunt for hackers
The Computer Crime Investigation Unit attached to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation carried out searches at two houses in Birr, Co Offaly and in Galway yesterday. Computers and portable storage media were seized and removed for forensic examination.
The suspects, both reported as males in their late teens, were detained for questioning at Tullamore and Galway Garda Stations under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.
According to reports in today’s papers, the suspect arrested in Offaly is alleged to have family links to one of the mainstream political parties and he was due to begin at Trinity College Dublin in the coming weeks. He and the other suspect being held in Galway are understood to have links to left-wing political groups and to Anonymous.
