Intellectual Property Law

DDoS Attacker Pleads Guilty, Agrees to Two Years' Prison

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

A 21-year-old Northern California man agreed to a two-year prison deal Tuesday after pleading guilty to charges of unleashing distributed-denial-of-service attacks against two web sites.

Gregory King, known as Silenz, Silenz420, sZ, GregK, and Gregk707, admitted in U.S. District Court in Sacramento that he controlled about 7,000 bots and used them to attack sites Killanet and Castlecops.

King was among eight recent botnet cases the FBI dubbed "Operation Bot Roast II."

Killanet, the online forum for graphic and web design, photography and gaming, was attacked in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Castlecops, an internet security community specializing in anti-phishing, malware analysis and combating spam, was attacked in 2007, King acknowledged.

The government said that when authorities arrested him at his Fairfield residence last year, "King exited the back door, hid a laptop computer in the backyard, and then returned to answer the front door."

The government seized the laptop and searched it, finding "botnet software and references to King's various online monikers."

Sentencing is set for Sept. 3. King faced a maximum 10-year penalty without the plea deal.

See Also:

• Hacker Hijacks Website of Hacking Tool Maker
• Comcast Hijackers Say They Warned the Company First
• Video: Smart Card Hacker's Tools Include Acid, Red Nail Polish ...
• FBI Agents Hunt for Comcast Hijackers
• Comcast.net Hijacked, Redirected
• No Chinese Hackers Found in Florida Outage Either
• Leaked Documents Show German Police Attempting to Hack Skype
• New York Hack Hacked

Full post as published by Threat Level on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).