British teenager charged with bomb hoaxes on US and UK airlines
A 15-year-old British boy has been charged with making bomb hoaxes to airlines in the US and the UK over the past year.
Police have charged the teenager under section 51 of the Criminal Law Act over allegations of bomb hoaxes.
He has also been charged with three offences under section 3 of the UK Computer Misuse Act, relating to cyber attacks on websites around the world.
The teenager from Plymouth, England, cannot be named because he is under 16, but it is believed his actions cost at least one company in the US a large amount of money and disrupted air travel.
His cyber attacks relate to denial of service attacks on websites in Europe, North America and elsewhere, which involved overwhelming a website with traffic, often forcing it to come offline.
The teenager was charged yesterday, before the two Air France flights bound for Paris were diverted following hoax bomb calls.
The teenager will appear in court on December 18.
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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