Feds get guilty plea in ‘DerpTrolling’ attacks on video game sites

The hacker who launched distributed denial-of-service attacks on Sony Online Entertainment and other online gaming companies in 2013 and 2014 pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Southern District of California announced this week. Prosecutors said 23-year-old Utah resident Austin Thompson caused at least $95,000 in damages by flooding the companies’ servers with internet traffic in order to take them offline between December 2013 and January 2014. He could receive up to 10 years in prison and is expected to pay a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for March 1. Thompson would use the Twitter account @DerpTrolling to announce his DDoS attacks in advance, federal prosecutors said, and then post screenshots of the victims’ servers that had been taken down in the aftermath. The attacks left game servers and other related computers around the world down for hours at a time. “Denial-of-service attacks cost businesses millions […]

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