Revengeful Hacker Faces 10 Years imprisonment for DDoSing Website of Security Firm

A 37 year old man of Oklahoma City, namely Benjamin Earnest Nichols, faces a federal prison sentence for 10 years because he launched a DDoS attack against the website owned by a security researcher.

Nichols confessed that he caused the transmission of a program or code to a protected computer under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. FBI released a statement saying that he was the member of a hacker group known as Electronik Tribulation Army (ETA).

As per DOJ, Jesse McGraw, leader of ETA hacking group and former security guard of Medical Plaza in Dallas, was charged for hacking into protected computers in the medical facility and was sentenced for over 9 years in federal prison.

McGraw, a North Central Medical Plaza security guard in Dallas, got arrested in 2009 (the month of his arrest was June) for installing malware on PCs of a medical center dedicated to sports and orthopedics. McGraw was expected to work there till July 3rd, 2009.

The hacker even planned to damage along with launching attacks of DDoS on his previous employee on 4th July, 2009, by using the malware. Further, he lovingly nicknamed this day as "Devil's Day".

One graduate student of Mississippi State University exposed the actions of the hacker by informing and providing proof to authorities. Theregister.com posted on April 7th, 2016, stating that the inquiry was also facilitated with the truth that McGraw in addition posted videos of YouTube where he was seen installing malicious software along with playing the theme pf Mission Impossible in the backdrop.

Nichols launched DDoS attack on the website mcgrewsecurity.com due to which its owner, security researcher Wesley McGrew suffered a loss of $5,000 to $6,500 over a period of one year. Moreover, Nichols confessed to have harassed the security researcher by setting up a bogus website under McGrew's name, and posted photo-shopped images of McGrew ordered for sex toys to be delivered at his home and used an internet relay chat bot to show profane insults to McGrew.

Authorities finally caught up with secret activities of Nichols and thus arrested and charged him, but later freed him on bail. Now, he has pleaded guilty for intentionally causing transmission of code or program to a secured computer due to which he might be put behind the bars for 10 years.

» SPAMfighter News - 4/14/2016