A 26-year-old Indian-origin computer science student has been charged with initiating a number of cyber-attacks on a chat site in the US.

Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma has been indicted for transmitting a programme, information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer, United States Attorney Brian J Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge John F Bennett said.

The indictment accuses the graduate student of initiating a number of attacks on a local provider of online chat services.

According to the indictment, between November 6, 2014 and January 20, 2015, Sharma, used a "distributed denial of service (DDoS) tool to compromise the computers of a San Francisco-based company that provides online chat services to third party web sites.

Sharma was arrested December 9. He was released on a USD 100,000 bond, US Attorney's Office, Northern District of California said in a statement.

If convicted, Sharma faces a maximum sentence of ten years in prison, three years of supervised release, and/or a fine.