A hacker from Utah named Austin Thompson has been sentenced to a 27-month term in jail by the US Attorney for the Southern District of California on Tuesday. The hacker was charged with ‘Damage to a protected computer’ for an attack in 2013 on Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), now known as the Daybreak Game Company. Thompson was part of a group called DerpTrollers who were allegedly behind many DoS attacks on many games including League Of Legends back in 2013.
Thompson and his group were not the first ones to process DoS attacks on SOE. 6 months before them, Lizard Group, another independent group of unethical hackers, also targeted SOE. The Lizard Group even forced a flight that was carrying its president to make an immediate landing by faking a bomb threat. Thompson, through the Twitter account of DerpTrolling had posted in 2014 that Federal Agents had been to their place, but they escaped from the Bathroom. Thompson used the account to post when an attack was imminent and also proofs of any attack that had already been executed. Thompson has been ordered to pay a fine of USD 95,000 and will start serving his jail term from August 3. Before Thompson, two members of the Lizard Group, Zachary Buchta of Maryland and Julius Kimivaki of Finland, were also sentenced to a jail term by their respective judiciaries.
Talking of Cyber Security, YouTube, in accordance with their policies, removed hacking how to videos from a popular education channel which sparked a bit of controversy with protestors asking YouTube to allow educational hacking videos. YouTube however remains strongly affixed to its policies and continues to remove any content related to hacking from its platform. Opinions are bound to differ and YouTube removing the hacking how to videos will be at large criticized and welcome from either sections of the community.