British LulzSec members plead guilty

Two British hackers allegedly associated with the LulzSec group pleaded guilty in a London court on Monday to plotting attacks against computers of international firms, law enforcement bodies and government agencies.

Ryan Cleary, 20, of southeast England, and Jake Davis, 19, of Scotland, pleaded guilty to charges they conspired with others to hack websites last year, Britain's Press Association reported.

Targets included the CIA, Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency and National Health Service, the Arizona State Police, Nintendo, Sony and Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group News International and 20th Century Fox film studio.

Targeted websites were hit by distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, flooding them with traffic until they crashed.

Cleary, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and is also wanted in the United States, also admitted four additional charges including an attack on Pentagon computers.

He was charged earlier this month and faces 25 years' imprisonment on the charges.

Two other suspects denied involvement in the DDoS attacks. All four denied further charges of "posting unlawfully obtained confidential computer data to public websites", such as LulzSec's website.

The other two suspects will stand trial next year, while it has yet to be decided whether Cleary and Davis will also stand trial for the charges that they deny.

LulzSec is an offshoot of the international hacking group Anonymous. Both groups embarked on a cyber-crime spree attracting widespread global media coverage.

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Peter Graff)