Teens quizzed over UK anti-terror hotline hacking

LONDON (Reuters) - Two teenage boys have been arrested after recordings of conversations between British counter-terrorism officers and of calls to a specialist hotline were published on the internet, London police said on Friday.

The youths, aged 16 and 17, were held after hackers linked to the anti-establishment group Anonymous blocked Britain's anti-terrorism hotline by jamming it with repeated calls.

Recordings of hoax calls made to the hotline and of discussions between counter-terrorism officers were then put on the YouTube website.

Detectives said the two boys had been arrested in central England on suspicion of offences under the Malicious Communications Act and the Computer Misuse Act.

London's Metropolitan Police said on Thursday it had conducted an investigation and was confident that its internal systems had not been penetrated, and that the hotline was secure.

The attack on the police came days after hackers disrupted the Home Office (interior ministry) website, and is the latest in a series of similar international incidents carried out by the loosely knit Anonymous group.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Jon Hemming)