Maryland hacker pleads guilty to running a hacker-for-hire service that disabled company websites and harassed players
A “hacker-for-hire” case is currently being heard in a Chicago federal criminal court following a guilty plea by 20-year-olf self-taught hacker Zachary Buchta from Maryland.
On Tuesday prosecutors recommended a two-and-a-half year jail term for the hacker following his cooperation with an international federal investigation. Buchta has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit damage to protected computers – a charge that can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Buchta admitted in his plea agreement with prosecutors to being a founding member of the prolific hacker groups Lizard Squad and PoodleCorp, which charged a $20 fee to target anyone for online harassment.
The young hacker was originally arrested in October last year, and the indictment charged him with launching a wide range of attacks over a two-year period, including shutting down the web networks of gaming companies and initiating so-called phone-bombing schemes that inundated victims with harassing and abusive phone calls. In some cases such calls were made hourly for up to a month, investigators revealed.
Buchta and his associates are also alleged to have sold stolen payment card account information on thousands of victims, prosecutors said.
Another member of the group from the Netherlands was also charged in the complaint filed in Chicago, but he was eventually prosecuted by Dutch authorities, records show.
The international investigation into the activities of Buchta and his associates has resulted in charges brought for the first time in the United States against the so-called Lizard Squad. Actions taken against the gang include a Californian hacker charged with cyber crimes, and a 17-year-old hacker in Finland who was charged with cyber crimes and received a two-year jail term.
The Lizard gang was reportedly involved in the Christmas 2014 DDoS “crippling” attacks on the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox Live gaming networks.
The gang is also alleged to have hijacked social media accounts of Grammy-winning pop singer Taylor Swift in early 2015, sending tweets from her account directing fans to follow two Lizard Squad accounts, and threatening to release nude photos of the superstar in exchange for bitcoins. The singer killed that project by assuring her fans that there are no nude pictures of her.
In all, the case against Buchta and his Netherlands accomplice runs to 61 pages, asserting that they operated websites that enabled paying customers to select victims.
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah postponed sentencing Tuesday until after Buchta’s cooperation with federal investigators has been completed, but Buchta has already agreed to pay $350,000 in restitution to two online gambling companies that were victimised by his schemes.