By Shawn Pogatchnik
Dublin - An Irish computer hacker accused of breaking into the email
account of Ireland's top cybersecurity cop, then using its contents to
eavesdrop on American and British anti-hacking detectives, was released
without charges Wednesday.
Irish
police said they were preparing a new evidence file for state
prosecutors to use against Donncha O Cearbhaill. He's been arrested and
released once before over alleged hacking attacks in Ireland last year.
FBI
affidavits identified the 19-year-old Trinity College chemistry student
as the Internet infiltrator responsible for recording and posting
online a Jan. 17 trans-Atlantic conference call between American and
British anti-hacking detectives.
The
U.S. District Court in Manhattan, acting on FBI affidavits, issued
indictments Tuesday against O Cearbhaill, two Britons, another Irishman
and a Chicago man over their alleged role in a string of cyber attacks
on several U.S. agencies and companies committed by an Anonymous hacker
subgroup called Lulz Security, or LulzSec. The FBI built its case using
the hackers' alleged leader, Sabu, as a turncoat informant who drew out
incriminating online admissions from the others.
Hackers
claiming allegiance to the amorphous Anonymous movement offered a
defiant reply Wednesday by defacing dozens of Web sites connected to
Internet defense firm Panda Security. The Anonymous activists justified
their attacks citing Panda's links to law enforcement. The Bilbao,
Spain-based company said its main site wasn't compromised.
Hackers
from Anonymous also said they knocked out the Vatican's Web site
Wednesday afternoon in a broad protest against Catholic doctrine, past
and present, as well as the chronic cover-up of child abuse by clergy.
O
Cearbhaill walked free from Terenure police station in south Dublin
after a 24-hour interrogation period, the maximum permitted under Irish
law for suspected hacking crimes.
Such releases are typical in Ireland, where state prosecutors can take months, even years, to mull whether to file charges.
He
made no public comments following his release. His father John Carroll,
a councilman in rural County Offaly, also declined comment.
The
other Irish citizen indicted, Galway university student Darren Martyn,
remained free Wednesday and conversed freely with followers on his
Twitter account, in which he describes himself as a reformed "blackhat,"
slang for a criminal hacker.
Martyn
said the FBI had got his age wrong — he's also just 19, not 25 — and he
intended to keep working on his own Internet and school projects in
expectation of potentially imminent arrest. He declined AP requests for
an interview.
The
U.S. court has indicted Martyn on two counts of hacking, with a
potential 10-year prison sentence for each count, while O Cearbhaill
faces one count of hacking and one count of disclosing an unlawfully
intercepted wire communication, offenses that combined carry a maximum
15-year sentence.
Irish
police arrested both O Cearbhaill and Martyn in September after their
online noms de guerre claimed responsibility for a hacking attack on the
Web site of Fine Gael, the major political party in Ireland's
government. They were both released and files of evidence prepared for
their potential prosecution, but they have yet to be charged over the
Fine Gael attack.
According
to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent George Schultzel, O Cearbhaill
decided to crack the email codes of his recent police captors.
While
Schultzel doesn't identify them by name, he testified that O Cearbhaill
was able to crack into the private email accounts of two detectives in
the Irish police's Computer Crime Investigation Unit, including its
commander — and found a security gold mine because both detectives had
been forwarding security-sensitive emails from their police accounts.
The FBI said it seized records of both Irish detectives' email accounts and found they'd been illegally accessed 146 times.
The
affidavit reports that O Cearbhaill told his LulzSec contact Sabu Jan. 9
he had "just got into the iCloud for the head of a national cybercrime
unit. I have all his contacts and can track his location 24/7." In a
footnote, Schultzel identifies O Cearbhaill's target as the Irish
police's cybercrime supervisor.
The
Associated Press requested an interview Wednesday with the Computer
Crime Investigation Unit's director, Detective Inspector Paul Gillen. He
and the police force declined the request, citing their ongoing investigation.
The
FBI affidavit suggests Gillen shipped a key email from the FBI —
listing the invited officials and phone passwords for their Jan. 17
conference call — from his police email account to his private one.
The
15-minute discussion, and the list of security officials, both were
leaked on to the Internet. In one telling moment, an FBI official asked
about progress on investigating the two Irish hackers, O Cearbhaill and
Martyn: "Is anyone on from Ireland?" Silence followed.
Internet
security experts said they found it hard to believe that the head of a
nation's cybersecurity unit would ship such a sensitive email to a
poorly protected private account, then not bother to participate in the
conference call.
"It's
obviously deeply embarrassing," said Graham Cluley, a technology
consultant for data security company Sophos. "It's a boo-boo. I would
hope that more sensitive information isn't being shared via his personal
account."
