CLEARY: NEW YEAR SENTENCE FOR ANONYMOUS HACKER
A member of the notorious online hacking group LulzSec must wait until March before he is sentenced for bringing down the websites of the CIA and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Ryan Cleary, 21, launched a string of cyber-attacks on major companies with fellow hackers from internet groups Anonymous and Internet Feds.
Among the sites targeted were Sony, the CIA, SOCA and News International.
Cleary has also admitted hacking in to computers operated by companies including Twentieth Century Fox and Nintendo, and attacking the National Health Service, the Arizona State Police and the Pentagon.
Judge Deborah Taylor ordered that Cleary be sentenced in the week beginning March 11.
The decision was made after prosecutors said they were not proceeding with charges against Cleary claiming he posted ‘unlawfully obtained confidential computer data to public websites including LulzSec.ccom, Pirate Bay and PasteBin’.
It was alleged that the material was capable of ‘encouraging or assisting’ offences under the Fraud Act and the Computer Misuse Act.
Prosecutors announced today that ‘the public interest does not require a trial’ on the two charges.
Earlier this year Cleary and Jake Davis, 20, admitted two counts of conspiracy to do an unauthorised act or acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, the operation of a computer or computers.
Cleary also admitted four further charges under sections 1 and 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 committed between January 2009 and June 2011.
Alleged co-hackers Ryan Ackroyd, 25, and a 17-year-old A-level student, from south London, denied the two charges and will stand trial next year
Davis, Ackroyd, and the teenager will all stand trial over the alleged posting of information capable of ‘encouraging or assisting’ further offences.
The name Lulzsec is a combination of ‘lulz’ or ‘lols’, meaning ‘laugh out loud’ and security.
DDoS attacks work by paralysing a computer system by flooding it with online requests and messages.
Cleary, of (10) South Beech Avenue, Wickford, Essex, will be sentenced next year.
Davis, of (30) Hoofields, Lerwick, Shetland; Ackroyd, of Oak Road, Mexborough, Doncaster; and the 17-year-old, from south London, will stand trial on April 8, 2013.
