[LINK] itNews: hacker pleads guilty in UK court

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Wed Apr 10 08:04:40 AEST 2013


Lulzsec hacker pleads guilty in UK court
Estelle Shirbon
itNews
Apr 10, 2013 5:43 AM (2 hours ago)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/339231,lulzsec-hacker-pleads-guilty-in-uk-court.aspx

Sentenced next month.

A British computer hacker has pleaded guilty to cyber attacks on 
targets including Sony, Nintendo, News International and the Arizona 
State Police.
Ryan Ackroyd's plea meant his planned jury trial did not go ahead 
and, as a result, the court did not hear any evidence on the 
motivation behind the attacks he made using the persona of a 
16-year-old girl named Kayla, as part of hacking group LulzSec.

Ackroyd, 26, was arrested in 2011 with three other British young men 
in connection with an international cyber crime spree by LulzSec, a 
splinter group of hacking collective Anonymous.

The other three had already pleaded guilty to several charges 
including cyber attacks on the CIA and Britain's Serious Organised 
Crime Agency (SOCA).

Anonymous, and LulzSec in particular, made international headlines in 
late 2010 when they launched what they called the "first cyber war" 
in retaliation for attempts to shut down the WikiLeaks website.

Ackroyd faced four charges but pleaded guilty to just one. 
Prosecutors said they would not pursue the other charges.

Ackroyd and his three fellow hackers will be sentenced on May 14.

Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18, and Jake Davis, 20, had both pleaded guilty to 
two counts while Ryan Cleary, 21, had pleaded guilty to six counts 
including an attack on Pentagon computers operated by the US Air 
Force.

Cleary, Al-Bassam and Davis admitted to launching distributed denial 
of service (DDoS) attacks in which websites are flooded with traffic 
to make them crash.

Ackroyd denied taking part in DDoS attacks but admitted, as did the 
three others, to hacking into computer systems, obtaining 
confidential data and redirecting legitimate website visitors to 
sites hosted by the hackers.

The targets listed in the charge to which Ackroyd pleaded guilty also 
included Britain's National Health Service, the US Public 
Broadcasting Service and 20th Century Fox.

The defendants are free on bail pending their sentencing, under the 
condition that they do not access the internet.

Cleary was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles last June 
but US authorities have indicated they would not seek his extradition 
as he was being prosecuted in Britain on the same charges.

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



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