- Title: British "Spiderman" sentenced in massive German router attack
- Date: 28th July 2017
- Summary: COLOGNE, GERMANY (JULY 28, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF REGIONAL COURT IN COLOGNE AUDIENCE VARIOUS OF STATE PROSECUTOR ENTERING COURTROOM VARIOUS OF DEFENCE ATTORNEY ENTERING COURTROOM VARIOUS OF HACKER, NAMED AS DANIEL K., ENTERING COURT, FACE COVERED JUDGES ENTERING COURT / DEFENCE ATTORNEYS SITTING DOWN COURTROOM BANNER ON DOOR WITH COURTROOM INFORMATION COLOGNE REGIONAL COURT SPOKESPERSON JAN ORTH AT INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (German) COLOGNE REGIONAL COURT SPOKESPERSON, JAN ORTH, SAYING: "The court gave the defendant a suspended sentence of one year and 8 months for attempted computer sabotage. After the defendant's admission, the courtroom considered it proven that he tried to take routers hostage across the world. Due to vulnerabilities, he attempted to put those routers together on the internet and connect them to a botnet in order to attack a Liberian company. The defendant received an order from a third party company, for which he was promised a monthly fee of 10,000 euro." TELEKOM SPOKESPERSON ALEXIA SALLER AT INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (German) TELEKOM SPOKESPERSON, ALEXIA SALLER, SAYING: "For us it is important today to show what comes out of this court case that attacks from cyberspace will be criminally prosecuted, just like ordinary crimes." SALLER AT INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (German) TELEKOM SPOKESPERSON, ALEXIA SALLER, SAYING: "The attack was, as we have highlighted many times, not successful against Telekom routers. The original plan was to link the routers to a Botnet. That did not work. What we have realised is that our reaction was very, very fast, providing an update for the routers which collapsed due to overload, within 12 hours, which was really a very fast reaction." SALLER AT INTERVIEW
- Embargoed: 11th August 2017 13:12
- Keywords: Deutsche Telekom hacker router Mirai botnet
- Location: COLOGNE, GERMANY
- City: COLOGNE, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Crime
- Reuters ID: LVA0016RMQIZ1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: A 29-year-old British hacker-for-hire was convicted by a German court on Friday (July 28) after he confessed to unleashing a cyber attack that knocked out the internet for around one million Deutsche Telekom customers.
The regional court in Cologne handed the man, named only as Daniel K., a suspended sentence of one year and eight months for attempted commercial computer sabotage. The maximum sentence was up to 10 years, and prosecutors had asked for two years.
The convicted hacker, who used the online alias "Spiderman", among other names, also faces criminal charges in Britain, where authorities have requested his extradition.
Last November, the man used a variant of the malicious Mirai botnet code to attack internet routers and turn them into remotely controlled "bots" for mounting large-scale attacks that disrupted websites and computer systems, police have said.
The botnet, once launched, spread out of control around the world, knocking out internet router equipment at up to a dozen telecom operators around the world, with Germany's Deutsche Telekom far and away the hardest hit.
British police arrested Daniel K. in February at Luton airport, north of London, on a request from Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to charge him with selling his botnet to online criminals. He was sent to Germany for trial. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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