A Connecticut man has been arrested on charges he hacked into Kiss rocker and reality television star Gene Simmons' website last year.
FBI special agents took 24-year-old Kevin George Poe of Manchester, Conn., into custody Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Hartford.
Poe — screen name “spydr101” — and others affiliated with the hacker group Anonymous attacked GeneSimmons.com for five days in October 2010, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.
The attacks on the site, where Simmons sells records and merchandise, came soon after Simmons spoke on a panel about how to build a successful brand in entertainment, according to the Guardian.
“Make sure your brand is protected. Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line,” Simmons said.
But hackers did cross that line. They responded by sending tens of thousands of electronic requests designed to overload the computer server and render the website useless, the U.S. Attorney charged.
When Poe appeared in court in Hartford on Tuesday, a judge ordered him to be released on a $10,000 bond and to appear in federal court in Los Angeles. His court date has not been set.