Suspected hacker held over Kiss frontman web attack

Kevin George Poe, from the northeastern US state of Connecticut, is charged with waging a denial of service attack on GeneSimmons.com, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Los Angeles, where he is wanted.

Poe -- who used the screen name spydr101 -- made an initial appearance in court in Hartford, Connecticut, where a judge ordered him released on a $10,000 bond, pending his appearance in a federal court in Los Angeles.

He faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted over the attack on Simmons, who is famous for the colorful make-up and costumes worn by Kiss, for whom he plays bass and sings.

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles returned an indictment last week that accused Poe of being linked with the Anonymous group, a loosely-associated international group that has been involved in scores of hacking exploits.

Specifically he was charged on two counts, of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, over a cyber attack during a five-day period in October 2010.

In the attack, Poe and other Anonymous-linked hackers allegedly sent tens of thousands of electronic requests designed to overload the computer server and render the website useless.

According to the indictment, Poe used a software tool favored by Anonymous hackers: a Low Orbit Ion Cannon, which can send massive numbers of "packets" or requests in an attempt to overwhelm a target computer.

Online media reports have suggested that Simmons has threatened to sue Anonymous over the attack on his website. There was no immediate reply from the musician and entrepreneur's publicist for reaction to Tuesday's arrest.

(c) 2011 AFP