A 17-year-old Brazilian youth suspected of being a member of an international hacking group has been arrested for allegedly hacking into Web sites, police said Friday.
The teen, who lives in the city of Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture, belongs to the Cyber Lords hacking group, which allegedly hacked into 1,032 Web sites in 33 countries, the police said.
He was quoted as telling investigators that his group has seven other members in countries that include the United States, Brazil and Portugal.
It is the first time that a member of the group has been arrested, police said.
They quoted the youth, who is employed as a temp worker, as saying he wanted to hone his skills as a hacker to get a computer-related job.
In September 2002, according to an investigation, the boy used his home computer to hack into the Web sites of a computer service firm and a private high school, which had servers in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
In July, the boy altered the home page of Kyoto University Hospital, police said.
The teen is suspected of violating the law banning unauthorized computer access.
The group is believed to have targeted two dozen or more Web sites in Japan, the U.S., Taiwan, the Netherlands and South Korea, Tokyo police said. The group signs its name on sites it has hacked into and posts the names of other sites it has accessed.
Police said the group randomly attacked Web sites with weak security systems and made changes in English or Portuguese.
Japanese police had been investigating the group's activities since March, acting on a tip from South Korean investigators via Interpol.