Tag Archives: court

FBI: Give us warrantless Section 702 snooping powers – or China wins

Never mind the court orders obtained to thwart Volt Typhoon botnet Analysis   The FBI’s latest PR salvo, as it fights to preserve its warrantless snooping powers on Americans via FISA Section 702, is more big talk of cyberattacks by the Chinese government.…

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FBI: Give us warrantless Section 702 snooping powers – or China wins

Teen hacker walks free after carrying out DDoS attacks on bank and e-crime portal

Australian teenager who DDoSed E-crime website, Commonwealth Bank and his own school, walks free This teen did something and got away with it! Seldom do you see anyone walking away free after creating online mayhem through DDoS attacks but this teen did just that. A 15-year-old teenage hacker was sentenced to a “family conference” by a judge at the Christies Beach Youth Court in Adelaide, Australia after he targeted Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network (ACORN) Portal, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and his own school servers in February 2016. In Australian law, a family conference is when the court leaves the punishment to the family and a supervising youth police officer, who must agree with the punishment in order to consider the matter closed. Family conferences may require the teen to apologize publicly, pay compensation to the victims, perform a number of hours of community service, or more. The youth, who cannot be identified under state law, pleaded guilty to four counts of unauthorised damage of computer systems related to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. However, the very next day, he walked free as the court ordered mediation between his family and victims rather than facing jail time. The teenager was fortunate for not having to face prison time up to 3 years in youth detention under cyber terrorism laws in Australia, as he is not an adult. “The penalty for orchestrating a DDoS attack is a maximum of 10 years imprisonment. This is found in the Cybercrime Act 2001, section 477.3 ‘unauthorised impairment of electronic communication.’” The teenager started his DDoS spree on February 26 when he first attacked CBA that left the bank and some overseas customers unable to access services for more than three hours. The attack “had the potential to cause serious disruption to our services”, says the bank, even though customer money and information was not put at risk. Later in March, he used his mobile phone in March to disrupt his high school’s information technology systems for “fun” and because he was “bored” in computing studies. Later, the teenager shifted the attacks from the school’s system to its Internet provider. On April 4, 2016, he launched another attack on the ACORN website, which is used by every Australian police force and multiple federal crime fighting agencies, was shut down for up to six minutes but abandoned later. He was arrested at his southern Adelaide home after both state and federal authorities tracked his unique internet protocol (IP) address. His school principal reported his crimes through ACORN. Magistrate Cathy Deland, herself a CBA customer, confessed that she was “making a big step” ordering a “family conference” — a move supported by police — but said the law need to concentrate on rehabilitation, reports Adelaide Now. She believed that he was unlikely to reoffend and had not demanded any “ransom”. Ms Deland said his crimes stopped classmates from learning while his attack on the CBA was “just massive”. She told him: “I don’t know that anyone would be able to put a price on repairing the disruption that you caused. I have no doubt it would have been millions of dollars. “I have no doubt that you would not have thought much about the consequences. I am in the difficult situation having to weigh up your incredible stupidity against … your rehabilitation.” The boy and his family refused to comment outside court. Source: http://www.techworm.net/2016/08/teen-hacker-walks-free-carrying-ddos-attacks-bank-e-crime-portal.html

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Teen hacker walks free after carrying out DDoS attacks on bank and e-crime portal

Anonymous Legion claims attack on Minnesota courts website

The international activist hacker group Anonymous Legion is claiming responsibility for an attack on the Minnesota Judicial Branch’s website that rendered it unusable for most of Wednesday. State officials became aware of the “distributed denial-of-service” (DDoS) attack about 8 a.m. Wednesday, around the same time Anonymous Legion e-mailed the Star Tribune. “Servers have also been penetrated and data has been secured, contrary to what they will tell you,” said Anonymous Legion’s e-mail. “This will occur frequently.” The group said the act was executed “collectively, through a global attack.” It is known for DDOS attacks on government websites, among others. The attack is similar to ones that interrupted the site last December. Last year’s attacks were traced to Asia and Canada. The state did not say Wednesday whether the attacks may be linked. “We are in the process of communicating with the FBI Cyber Task Force about this incident,” Beau Berentson, a spokesman for the state court administration office, said in a written statement. The website (www.mncourts.gov), visited by thousands every day looking to access court resources and information, was taken offline as the attack was investigated. Access to the site was restored around 5:15 p.m. “We have no evidence that any secure data has been inappropriately accessed,” Berentson said. Other online resources linked through the website are still functioning, including eFiling and eService, the Court Payment Center and remote access to district and appellate court records. The website was down for several hours from Dec. 21 to 31 in the previous attacks. “In a DDOS attack, an outside entity attempts to overwhelm an online resource with so much network traffic that it is no longer accessible to legitimate users,” State Court Administrator Jeff Shorba said in a January statement about last year’s attacks. “During these attacks, the Minnesota Judicial Branch did not experience any form of data breach or inappropriate access to court records, nor is there any evidence to suggest that the attackers attempted to gain access to Judicial Branch records or information.” Those attacks were reported to the federal government and Canadian authorities. “DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly common against high-profile websites in both the public and private sectors,” Shorba said in January. “While we cannot prevent these attacks from being launched, the Minnesota Judicial Branch is now better prepared to respond to these types of attacks in the future.” Source: http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-courts-website-attacked-again-by-hackers/384003231/

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Anonymous Legion claims attack on Minnesota courts website