FBI raids web attack suspect's home

The FBI has raided the home of a US hacker who they suspected was involved in a series of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on major websites last month.

Following the raid on his New Hampshire home, 17-year-old Dennis Moran - nicknamed Coolio - admitted hacking three websites, but denied any involvement in the February DoS attacks on Yahoo and others.

Coolio's name was leaked to the FBI shortly after the attacks on Monday 7 February against websites such as Yahoo, Amazon.com and eBay.com. The sites received a massive amount of requests for data, which overloaded their systems and shut them down for several hours.

Moran denied responsibility for the attacks, but admitted that he had separately hacked three websites: an anti-drug site in Los Angeles; a US Commerce Department site that outlines rules for exporting chemicals that can be used to produce weapons; and Rsa.com, the website of a security company.

Last week a top FBI official tried to rationalise to US politicians why tracking down denial-of-service hackers is so difficult.

Michael Vatis, the director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, told a joint hearing of the US Congress on crime: "The challenges to apprehending the suspects are substantial. Despite these challenges, I am optimistic that the hard work of our agents, analysts, and computer scientists will in the end prove successful."