Scotland Yard denies phone system was hacked

Scotland Yard has denied that its Anti-Terrorist Hotline was hacked. Director of Information for the Metropolitan Police Service, Alisa Beaton, said "We are confident the MPS communications systems have not been breached and remain, as they always have been, secure". She added that they believed any recording would have been made on "the receiving handset only and not from an attack on internal systems" and that the public could continue to rely on the confidentiality of the system.

The statement came in response to claims by the hacker group "TeamPoison" who say they have intercepted conversations through the hotline and posted them on the internet. The conversation refers to the "phone-bombing" of the hotline, which had been subject to around 700 calls from the group, believed to have been set up using Skype or some other VOIP system. The officer also mentions that some calls, which were prank calls, were also recorded and placed on YouTube.

According to HuffingtonPost, the leader of the group is called TriCk and is a 17-year-old British Muslim. In an interview with the site, TriCk said "It was actually easy, you just have to learn how phone systems work and learn the art of phreaking".

The BBC reports that two teenage boys, aged 16 and 17, have been arrested at an East Midlands address and are being held in custody on suspicion of having committed offences under the Malicious Communications Act and Computer Misuse Act.

(djwm)