Deans Court Counsel Secures Non-Custodial Sentence in Anonymous ‘Hacktivist’ Cyber Attack Case

Elizabeth Dudley-Jones secured a short suspended, non-custodial sentence for one of the defendants, who pleaded guilty to a limited role in the conspiracy. The case was heard at Southwark Crown Court, involving four defendants. The group organised and carried out distributed denial of service attacks ('DDoS') on the Ministry of Sound, Paypal, Mastercard and Visa, causing losses in excess of £3.5m. The group organised attacks as part of 'Operation Payback' which were designed to paralyse the computer systems of major companies by flooding them with online requests, or 'LOIC's', because the hackers did not agree with their views. The Anonymous group specifically attacked Paypal, Mastercard and Visa after they decided not to process payments involved in raising funds for Wikileaks.

These are believed to be the first convictions for DDoS in the UK.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21187632