A 23-year-old hacker from Utah who launched a collection of DDoS assaults towards a number of on-line providers, web sites, and on-line gaming corporations between December 2013 and January 2014 has been sentenced to 27 months in jail.
Austin Thompson, a.ok.a. “DerpTroll,” pledged responsible again in November 2018 after he admitted to being a part of DerpTrolling, a hacker group that was behind DDoS assaults towards a number of main on-line gaming platforms together with Digital Arts’ Origin service, Sony PlayStation community, and Valve Software program’s Steam throughout Christmas.
“Thompson usually used the Twitter account @DerpTrolling to announce that an assault was imminent after which posted “scalps” (screenshots or different photographs displaying that victims’ servers had been taken down) after the assault,” the DoJ says.
Based on a U.S. Division of Justice press release printed Wednesday, Thompson’s actions induced the sufferer corporations a minimum of $95,00zero in damages. The defendant was arrested in summer time final yr.
Along with the jail sentence, the DoJ has additionally ordered the defendant to pay $95,00zero in restitution to Dawn Video games, previously Sony On-line Leisure.
Thompson is presently free on bond and has been ordered to give up to authorities on 23rd August 2019 with a purpose to start his sentence.
“Denial-of-service assaults price companies and people thousands and thousands of {dollars} yearly,” US Lawyer Robert Brewer mentioned. “We’re dedicated to prosecuting hackers who deliberately disrupt web entry.”
Nonetheless, it wasn’t simply DerpTrolling that created chaos in 2014 by disrupting on-line gaming servers owned by Sony, Microsoft, Riot Video games, Nintendo, Valve, and Digital Arts.
Lizard Squad, an notorious hacking group, additionally made headlines in yr 2014 by launching DDoS assaults towards Microsoft’s Xbox Dwell and Sony’s PlayStation Community and knocking them offline in the course of the Christmas holidays.
A number of youngsters have since been arrested and charged world wide for collaborating within the Lizard Squad 2014 DDoS assaults.
Julius Kivimaki, one of many Lizard Squad members who was arrested by Finnish authorities in late 2014, was convicted in Finland in July 2015, receiving a suspended jail sentence of two years for his actions.
