Call of Duty Cyber Attack Prompts Arrest

The BBC reports that a 17 year old boy has been arrested in the Beswick area of Manchester, England by the Metropolitan Police's central e-crime unit. It followed a "denial of service" attack, usually aimed at making websites unusable, which rendered the game unplayable to a large number of people.

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The BBC reports that a 17 year old boy has been arrested in the Beswick area of Manchester, England by the Metropolitan Police’s central e-crime unit. It followed a “denial of service” attack, usually aimed at making websites unusable, which rendered the game unplayable to a large number of people.

The attack was caused by a malicious program called “Phenom Booter”, which stopped other people from playing the game while allowing the user to continue earning points. This program was also being sold on a web forum.

The game’s publisher, Activision, contacted police in September, allowing detectives to find that the server was hosted in the U.K. They then narrowed it down using his IP address to the Greater Manchester area.

The teenager, currently under police custody, has been arrested on suspicion of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act, though no specific charges have been reported as of yet.


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Vince Yuen
Vince Yuen is an Associate Editor and author for We Got This Covered based just north of Toronto. I'm a graduate from York University and write video game and music articles for the site in my spare time.