Justine Roberts
Justine Roberts' home was surrounded by armed police after a hoax call made following an attack on her Mumsnet website Getty

A Surrey man has been charged with hacking Mumsnet in an attack purportedly carried out by an internet troll named @DadSecurity. The parenting website was shut down in August 2015 after weeks of attacks on the forum and its 7.7 million users.

David Buchanan, 18, of Vann Road in Haslemere, was charged on 21 May with two offences under the Computer Misuse Act. The charges relate to various incidents of computer intrusion and damage to network profiles between July and August 2015. He has been bailed to appear at Guildford Magistrates' Court on 7 June.

@DadSecurity published a list of usernames, IP addresses and passwords, as well as email addresses and passwords of site administrators. The website suffered a blackout for several hours and at least 11 user accounts were compromised as a result of the attack.

Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts was then "swatted" by a hoax phone call in which the caller said there had been a murder at the entrepreneur's home. Armed police rushed to the home only to find they had been duped.

Two 17-year-old boys were interviewed under caution in relation to the incident but face no further action.