Teenage hacker is locked up over web attacks

A YOUNG man has been jailed for two years for setting up an online computer hacking business which caused chaos all over the world.

Adam Mudd was just 16 when he created his Titanium Stresser programme, which was used to carry out more than 1.7m attacks on websites including Minecraft, Xbox Live, and gamers’ communications tool TeamSpeak.

He raked in more than £386,000 worth of US dollars and Bitcoins from selling the programme to cyber criminals across the world.

Mudd admitted his moneymaking scheme and was sentenced at the Old Bailey by Judge Michael Topolski QC.

The judge noted that Mudd came from a “perfectly respectable and caring family” but the effect of his crimes caused damage “from Greenland to New Zealand from Russia to Chile”.

He said the sentence must have a “real element of deterrent” and refused to suspend the jail term.

“I’m entirely satisfied that you knew full well and understood completely this was not a game for fun,” he told Mudd.

“It was a serious money-making business and your software was doing exactly what you created it to do”.

Mudd showed no emotion as he was sent down to serve his sentence in a young offenders’ institution.

During the two-day hearing, prosecutor Jonathan Polnay said the effect of his hacking programme was truly global, adding: “Where there are computers there are attacks, almost every major city in the world, with hot spots in France, Paris, around the UK.”

The Old Bailey heard that Mudd, who lived at home with his parents, had previously undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and was more interested in “status” in the online gaming community than the money.

The court heard that the defendant, now aged 20, carried out 594 of the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks himself, against 181 IP addresses, between December 2013 and March 2015.

But Judge Topolksi warned: “I have a duty to the public who are worried about this. It’s terrifying.”