Bootle man arrested over bank and council cyber attacks
A man has been arrested after a series of cyber attacks caused disruption to bank and council websites.
The attacks, which happened earlier this month and in June, targeted two multinational banking firms and a council in the North West, police said.
A search warrant was carried out at a house in Bootle, Merseyside, earlier.
The 50-year-old man, from Bootle, was taken to be questioned on suspicion of offences under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act (1990).
'Worry and concern'
Police said the website of an advisory service for family court matters was also targeted.
The sites were disrupted by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. These involve flooding organisations' web servers with requests, causing them to crash.
Det Ch Insp Janet Hudson, from the North West's e-crime unit, said a computer was seized during the search of the property.
She said: "Four large organisations have suffered as a result of these cyber attacks with the services they provide badly affected for lengthy periods.
"These attacks caused worry and concern. No-one knew how long they would last or if the damage could be repaired."