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A BRITISH STUDENT was today convicted for his role in a series of cyber-attacks by the hacking group Anonymous that cost the US online payments giant PayPal millions of dollars.
Christopher Weatherhead, 22, was found guilty of participating in attacks by Anonymous on PayPal, MasterCard and other companies that refused to process payments to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors said the assault on PayPal had cost the company €4.3 million in loss of trading as well as software and hardware updates to fend off similar attacks.
Weatherhead, who used the name Nerdo on the Internet, was described as a leading player in the “distributed denial of service” attacks.
The jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court convicted him on one count of conspiracy to impair the operation of computers, contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977.
Weatherhead, who will be sentenced at a later date, could face up to 10 years in prison.
The DDoS attacks paralysed computer systems by overloading them with online requests.
Targeted websites were directed to a page reading: “You’ve tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung.”
In a campaign codenamed “Operation Payback”, Anonymous also targeted companies in the music industry and opponents of music piracy including the Ministry of Sound nightclub and record label, the jury heard.
Three other men have already pleaded guilty to the charge.
Anonymous, who style themselves as “hacktivists”, said last month that they had downed dozens of Israeli government websites in protest over the Jewish state’s air assault on Gaza, which ended with a wary truce yesterday.
- (c) AFP 2012.
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Appropriate punishment would be to allow him to only have access to the internet via internet explorer!
With Vista
Comment of the week :-)
Paypal had to update their systems to ward off similar attacks. So young lad kind of pointed out the weaknesses of the site. Isn’t it better that a hackivist find the weakness instead of some criminal gang that would go the whole way and steal money too?
Pay pal probably hire him now!
He could have pointed it out rather than actually doing it
Ah but there’d be no fun in that!
This guy should be rewarded, not punished.
For screwing over millions of Paypal customers?
Waffler Towers, Paypal was attacked because they pulled their services from Wikileaks. Wikileaks has been the target of unprecedented attention and Anonymous stood up to Paypal (and Mastercard) for withdrawing their service to Wikileaks – while the continued to provide services to hate groups including neo-nazis.
No user data is taken on a DDoS attack and no lasting damage is done. It’sunlikely that paypal lost anything in this attack.
Anonymous has done quite a lot of hacktivism including providing services to the people of states when governments try to take down the internet, including Gaza, Syria, Tunisua.
Well they screwed me over, I had a nightmare withdrawing funds from Paypal while this was being sorted. It’s not much fun thinking your wages have vanished
So what you’re saying is that you had trouble accessing your money while paypal addressed a security risk?
Sorry, but it’s hard to have sympathy that you appear to have kept all your money in paypal in the scheme of the important point behind the attack.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-grid/are-ddos-attacks-legitimate-form-protest
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/20118308455825769.html
If I could avoid Paypal believe me I would but that’s how I get paid
Sounds like a real legitimate business there…..
That’s life in 2012
PayPal can be quiet tricky to deal with on occasions, they have peeded off a lot of people who use them to sell online.
Wrong . He is subverting legitimate businesses ability to operate. I don’t have any particular liking for PayPal but you cannot allow people to use this sort if power over systems in a democracy. What happens if you get some evil bastard wrecking a system and the end result is lives are lost . A nut like the one that killed all those students in Norway for example.
and how do you justify paypal withdrawing their services from wikileaks?
“In a democracy” protest is permitted…
ridiculous. i applaud anonymous.
Anonymous is an Internet Hydra and these convictions will do nothing to deter them. Power needs to be taken out of the hands of corporations and back into the people…
Are Anonymous going to pay our wages?
Good answer Waffler since profits for corporations are at record highs while wages in relation to profits are at record lows and the profits get rerouted to offshore countries for a very,very small minority to enjoy. Any other insightful comments? No didn’t think so, stick to talkin shyte, ur name is very apt.
Awaits anonymous’s reaction with interest!
Up to ten years?
This is the most serious fraud anyone could commit.
And the lad is only 22??!!
Ten years should be the minimum sentence.
There was no fraud. No money was stolen.
Yeah you really do not know what you are talking about. Anonymous have an automated program called LOIC (Low Orbit ion Cannon) that floods servers with requests and overloads them. That’s all. it’s a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. It could not be construed as fraud unless it was used to gain access to said server to steal details / funds.
The Parmy Olson book; We Are Anonymous highlights the extent of his groups involvement. He is probably less of a hacker than a script Kiddie.
Download file, click button…. 10 years in prison.
People seem to have a certain image of Anonymous that involves some of their origins. While Anonymous used to be possibly justifiably seen as a group which knew no true direction there is definitely a philosophy that has developed. That philosophy is not about policing the internet (IMO). It sees more that they disapprove of internet censorship and denial of internet to the general public, especially in times of unrest. It also extends to awareness campaigns and targeting groups, corporations and governments who are abusing their positions.
And still the criminal bankers strut around London and Brussels free as birds. Anybody up in arms about them.
Go to bed waffler
Sounds like a ten year stretch would be good enough for him.
Let’s not forget what wiki leaks has exposed and proven, 10years is very harsh, the real criminals here are ones torturing and abusing vulnerable men women and children in a so called war and there is conspirisy theory attached to that comment.
Why would 10 years be good for him Reg? What possibly went through your mind when you wrote that comment that you think ten years in prison with rapists and murderers and drug dealers, would do this lad any good?
DDoS ≠ hacking
DDoS is me standing outside my neighbours house shouting abuse at him so he can’t hear his doorbell, hacking is me picking his locks and breaking in.
To learn the back round to this story watch a documentary called “We Are Legion”
Guess that’s why it’s been so much hassle using Paypal recently
If I ran Paypal I wouldn’t do business with a self-confessed date-rapist either
I know. You would do business with multi-national murderers and neo-nazis.
I hear a lot of credit cad are cloned by people who work on Internet sites so beware.
Oh Chrissss. He’s my friend from uni and always been a really stand up guy, Im so sorry to hear this verdict :(
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