FOX5 Vegas - KVVULas Vegas woman arrested in hacking scheme

Las Vegas woman arrested in hacking scheme

Posted: Updated:
Posted By Stefanie Jay, Reporter - email
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) -

A Las Vegas woman was arrested, with more than a dozens others, for cyber attacks on e-commerce business PayPal.

Federal investigators believe 20-year-old Mercedes Haefer was part of the hacker group "Anonymous," which claimed to be behind the attacks.

Haefer is believed to be a student at UNLV.

The suspects allegedly committed the crimes out of retaliation for PayPal suspending WikiLeaks' account, to prevent donations from going through.

According to FBI documents, the attacks were referred to as "Operation Avenge Assange."

"What happens is, they can be anywhere and attack a particular IP address or company," said computer expert Leon Mare.

"They do a denial service attack. The more attacks, the slower the server becomes," said Mare.

Anonymous has also claimed attacks on Visa and MasterCard websites.

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