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Jack Chappell, from the West Midlands, allegedly supplied denial-of-service (DoS) malware used to enslave PCs into a botnet for conducting disruptive attacks.
"He has been charged with impairing the operation of computers under the Computer Misuse Act, plus encouraging or assisting an offense and money laundering crime proceeds together with an American national," West Midlands Police said in a statement.
The malware was reportedly used to direct denial of service attacks at tech firms including Netflix and Amazon; telecommunications companies T-Mobile, EE, O2, BT and Vodafone; the BBC, Virgin Media and the National Crime Agency.
Denial of service (DoS) attacks occur when an attacker attempts to make a machine or network unavailable to its users, thereby disrupting those services. The attacks can be short-lived or can be carried out indefinitely with enough resources.