LulzSec Leader Was Snitch Who Helped Snag Fellow Hackers

By Kim Zetter, Wired

06 March 12

top LulzSec leader turned informant after he was secretly arrested last year and then provided information to law enforcement which resulted in the arrest on two continents Tuesday of other top members of the hacking group, including one of the alleged leaders of the Stratfor hack, according to a news report.

Hector Xavier Monsegur, a 28-year-old New Yorker who allegedly used the online name "Sabu," has been working undercover for the feds since the FBI arrested him without fanfare last June, according to FoxNews. Monsegur provided agents with information that helped them arrest several suspects on Tuesday, including two men from Great Britain, two from Ireland and an American in Chicago, according to FoxNews.

"This is devastating to the organization," an FBI official told FoxNews. "We're chopping off the head of LulzSec."

Monsegur, an unemployed father of two, allegedly led the loosely organized group of hackers from his apartment in a public housing project in New York. After his arrest he reportedly pleaded guilty Aug. 15 to 12 hacking-related charges. Documents in his case were unsealed in New York federal court on Tuesday.

"They caught him and he was secretly arrested and now works for the FBI," a source told FoxNews.com.

Those arrested on Tuesday include Ryan Ackroyd, aka "Kayla," Jake Davis, aka "Topiary," from London; Darren Martyn, aka "pwnsauce," and Donncha O'Cearrbhail, aka "palladium," from Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond, aka "Anarchaos," from Chicago.

Hammond, a member of Anonymous - a group loosely affiliated with LulzSec - is believed to be the main actor behind the hack of U.S. security company Stratfor in December, which resulted in the seizure of more than five million company e-mails, customer credit card numbers and other confidential information. The government said in a court filing that Hammond "used some of the stolen credit card data to make at least $700,000 worth of unauthorized charges." (.pdf)

The secret-spilling site WikiLeaks has begun to publish the e-mail with media partners around the world.

Ackroyd was allegedly Monsegur's top deputy and was responsible for uncovering vulnerabilities in the U.S. Senate's computer systems, according to FoxNews sources.