UK: 18-year-old, one other charged for cyber attacks

An 18-year-old student in northwestern England has been charged in a series of cyberattacks on the websites of nearly a dozen multinational firms.

Jack Chappell is accused of supplying software that crashes websites by flooding them with data and with running a help-desk for cyber criminals.

West Midlands Police said in a statement that "Chappell allegedly attacked the websites of T-Mobile, EE, Vodafone, O2, BBC, BT, Amazon, Netflix, Virgin Media and the National Crime Agency."

He is also accused of assisting hackers in a 2015 attack on NatWest.

The force's cybercrime unit worked with the FBI, Israeli Police and Europol's European Cybercrime Centre during the investigation.

Chappell has been charged alongside an American citizen.