FBI Seizes Web Servers In Data Centre Raid

The FBI launched a raid on a data centre in Virginia and seized a number of web servers, at the same time as British police arrested a 19-year-old man allegedly connected with the Lulzsec hacktivist group.

The FBI raid reportedly happened on Tuesday at 1:15 am local time (6.15am UK time), and the servers snatched by the FBI belonged to Swiss-based web hosting company DigitalOne.

The FBI’s actions apparently resulted in a number of innocent websites, such as the bookmarking service Pinboard, and a tool for saving web articles (Instapaper) going offline or moving their operations elsewhere. Other websites were also said to be affected by the server seizure, including DigitalOne’s own website, as well as a real-estate and restaurant blog.

Unprofessional FBI?

The web hosting company has accused the FBI of acting in an “unprofessional” manner, according to an email published by the New York Times.

The email from DigitalOne’s chief executive, Sergej Ostroumow, told a client that in the “night FBI has taken three enclosures with equipment plugged into them, possibly including your server – we cannot check it.”

“After FBI’s unprofessional ‘work’ we can not restart our own servers, that’s why our website is offline and support doesn’t work.,” he is quoted as saying in the email.

And it seems that Ostroumow could have a right to be upset with the FBI. Apparently DigitalOne had already provided the G men with details of how to find servers linked to an IP address they were investigating, but the the FBI agents apparently went ahead and seized unrelated equipment.

Targeted Raids

The identity of the DigitalOne client targeted by the raid was not released, but the New York Times, quoted a government official who declined to be named, said that the FBI was actively investigating the Lulz Security group and any affiliated hackers.

The government official also apparently said the FBI had teamed up with other agencies in this effort, including the Central Intelligence Agency and cybercrime bureaus in Europe.

Lulzsec earlier this week revealed it had formed a partnership with the Anonymous group, famous for supporting Wikileaks.

Meanwhile the man that British police had arrested in Wickford, Essex, who has been named by the media as Ryan Cleary, is still being held on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act, and Fraud Act offences. Lulzsec has denied he is the ringleader of the hacktivist group.