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Suspected Sony hackers Cleary and Davis plead guilty

UK men admit to being part of Lulzsec.

Two men suspected of hacking Sony and other video game companies have pleaded guilty to a raft of charges.

At Southwark Crown Court today 19-year-old Ryan Cleary and 18-year-old Jake Davis admitted being members of Anonymous spin-off Lulzsec, a hacker group that was blamed for a number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on video game companies throughout 2011.

Cleary, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and Davis pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to do an unauthorised act or acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, the operation of a computer or computers.

However, they deny the allegation they posted "unlawfully obtained confidential computer data" on the internet.

Two other alleged hackers, 25-year-old Ryan Ackroyd and a 17-year-old whose identity remains a secret, deny hacking charges.

Lulzsec is suspected of being responsible for attacks on Sony, Nintendo, Bethesda, Minecraft, League of Legends and Eve Online.

Cleary was arrested in June 2011 and released on bail after being banned from accessing the internet. He was later jailed after breaching that condition. A trial date has been set for April 2013. All apart from Cleary were released on bail.