A man has been jailed for two years for setting up a computer hacking business that caused chaos worldwide.
Adam Mudd was 16 when he created the Titanium Stresser program, which carried out more than 1.7m attacks on websites including Minecraft, Xbox Live and Microsoft and TeamSpeak, a chat tool for gamers.
He earned the equivalent of more than £386,000 in US dollars and bitcoins from selling the program to cybercriminals.
Mudd pleaded guilty and was sentenced at the Old Bailey. The judge, Michael Topolski QC, noted that Mudd came from a “perfectly respectable and caring family”. He said the effect of Mudd’s crimes had wreaked havoc “from Greenland to New Zealand, from Russia to Chile”.
During the two-day hearing, Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said the effect of Mudd’s hacking program was “truly global”. “Where there are computers, there are attacks – in almost every major city in the world – with hotspots in France, Paris, around the UK,” he said.
The court heard that Mudd, who lived with his parents, had previously undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and was more interested in status in the online gaming community than the money.
He admitted to security breaches against his college while he was studying computer science. The attacks on West Herts College crashed the network, cost about £2,000 to investigate and caused “incalculable” damage to productivity, the court heard.
Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks. Its owner company spent £6m trying to defend itself against DDoS attacks, with a revenue loss of £184,000.
The court heard that Mudd created Titanium Stresser in September 2013 using a fake name and address in Manchester. He offered a variety of payment plans to his customers, including discounts for bulk purchases of up to $309.99 for 30,000 seconds over five years as well as a refer-a-friend scheme.
When he was arrested in March 2015, Mudd was in his bedroom on his computer, which he refused to unlock before his father intervened.
The “bright and high-functioning” defendant understood what he did was wrong but at the time he lacked empathy due to his medical condition, the court heard.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...sterminding-attacks-sony-microsoft?CMP=twt_gu
Adam Mudd was 16 when he created the Titanium Stresser program, which carried out more than 1.7m attacks on websites including Minecraft, Xbox Live and Microsoft and TeamSpeak, a chat tool for gamers.
He earned the equivalent of more than £386,000 in US dollars and bitcoins from selling the program to cybercriminals.
Mudd pleaded guilty and was sentenced at the Old Bailey. The judge, Michael Topolski QC, noted that Mudd came from a “perfectly respectable and caring family”. He said the effect of Mudd’s crimes had wreaked havoc “from Greenland to New Zealand, from Russia to Chile”.
During the two-day hearing, Jonathan Polnay, prosecuting, said the effect of Mudd’s hacking program was “truly global”. “Where there are computers, there are attacks – in almost every major city in the world – with hotspots in France, Paris, around the UK,” he said.
The court heard that Mudd, who lived with his parents, had previously undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and was more interested in status in the online gaming community than the money.
He admitted to security breaches against his college while he was studying computer science. The attacks on West Herts College crashed the network, cost about £2,000 to investigate and caused “incalculable” damage to productivity, the court heard.
Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks. Its owner company spent £6m trying to defend itself against DDoS attacks, with a revenue loss of £184,000.
The court heard that Mudd created Titanium Stresser in September 2013 using a fake name and address in Manchester. He offered a variety of payment plans to his customers, including discounts for bulk purchases of up to $309.99 for 30,000 seconds over five years as well as a refer-a-friend scheme.
When he was arrested in March 2015, Mudd was in his bedroom on his computer, which he refused to unlock before his father intervened.
The “bright and high-functioning” defendant understood what he did was wrong but at the time he lacked empathy due to his medical condition, the court heard.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...sterminding-attacks-sony-microsoft?CMP=twt_gu
