Aussie police make double 'Anonymous' arrests...

A long-term Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigation has resulted in the arrest of two men in two states allegedly involved in a campaign targeting Australian and international websites.

The AFP will allege in court that the two men claimed to be members of the online issue motivated group 'Anonymous'.

Since 2012, people who claim to be members of 'Anonymous' have targeted a number of Australian government and corporate networks.

These attacks have resulted in theft of personal data, defacement of websites and Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks causing websites to drop offline.

National Manager High Tech Crime Operations Tim Morris says attacks such as these can have a serious impact on government and business services.

"Hacking activities can affect everyone from small businesses right up to large government organisations," he says.

"These acts can cause serious disruption to government and business networks, which in turn can be catastrophic for people who rely on these networks to run their small business or administer their entitlements or personal finances.

"The impairment or disruption of communications to or from computer networks is a criminal act and can have serious consequences; it is not harmless fun."

AFP officers on Wednesday night conducted search warrants at residential addresses in Penrith, NSW and Scarborough, WA.

A number of computer hard drives and other equipment were seized during the warrants. It is anticipated that it will take several months to analyse these items due to the amount of information stored on them.

It will be alleged in court that these two men were known to each other online and targeted organisations including a large internet service provider and web servers hosting Australian and Indonesian government websites.

A 40-year-old Scarborough (Western Australia) man was charged with:

* Aid the unauthorised modification of Melbourne IT Limited computer network located in Brisbane, Queensland to cause impairment, contrary to Section 477.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 pursuant to Section 11.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995; and

* Unauthorised modification of Indonesian Government web servers, to cause impairment, contrary to Section 477.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.

An 18-year-old Penrith (New South Wales) man was charged with the following offences:

* Unauthorised modification of data to Netspeed ISP located in Canberra, ACT, to cause impairment, contrary to Section 477.2 of the Criminal Code Act 1995

* Unauthorised access to and modification of restricted data belonging to the ACT Long Service Leave Board, Canberra, ACT, contrary to 478.1 of the Criminal Code Act 1995.

Both men faced court yesterday.