The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Man jailed over hacking business
Court: Cyber criminal raked in more than £386,000 from selling his software
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 1.7million 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 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 moneymaking 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, UK.”
The Old Bailey heard 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.
Mr Polnay said there were more than 112,000 registered users of Mudd’s programme who hacked some 666,000 IP addresses. Of those, nearly 53,000 were in the UK.
Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks.
It cost its owner company £6million to try to defend itself against DDoS attacks with a revenue loss of £184,000.
The court heard that Paris, around the Mudd created Titanium Stresser in September 2013 using a fake name and address in Manchester.
Mudd offered a variety of payment plans to his customers, who had to log in with a username and password. He offered discounts for bulk purchases of up to $309.99 for 30,000 seconds over five years as well as a refer-a-friend scheme.
Mudd got round PayPal attempts to bar payments to Titanium Stresser by using 328 different accounts.
Mudd, from Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, pleaded guilty to one count of doing unauthorised acts with intent to impair the operation of computers, one count of making, supplying or offering to supply an article for use in an offence contrary to the Computer Misuse Act, and one count of concealing criminal property.
Mudd’s solicitor said he was “lost in an alternate reality” of gaming after withdrawing from school due to bullying.
“I am satisfied you knew full well this was not a game of fun”