Fergie's Tech Blog

Hired Internet Gun Sentenced to Two Years

Brian Krebs writes on Security Fix:

A 31-year-old Ohio man thought to be one of the first U.S. citizens convicted of contracting to organize crippling attacks against commercial Web sites has been sentenced to two years in prison for his crimes.

Paul Garrett Ashley was ordered by a federal judge last month to spend two years in the clink for his role in creating for hire the "DDoS Mafia," a group of young hackers who used thousands of hacked home computers to launch a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in 2003 that knocked out several targeted commercial Web sites. A copy of his sentencing order is here (PDF).

Ashley was allegedly hired to organize the attacks by one Jay Echouafni, at the time the chief executive officer of Sudbury, Mass- based Orbit Communication Corp.. According to the FBI, Echouafni hired Ashley to flood his competitors' Web sites with so much junk traffic that they would no longer be able to accommodate legitimate visitors. The attacks worked as planned -- a little too well, as it turned out: The assaults also temporarily blocked access to more high-profile sites including Amazon.com and the Department of Homeland Security, resulting in more than $2 million in losses, according to the government.

Following his indictment on five counts of aiding and abetting computer intrusion and conspiracy, Echouafni fled the country and is now listed among the FBI's most-wanted fugitives.

posted by Fergie @ 5/02/2006 06:39:00 AM