A 17-year-old teenager in Finland was handed a suspended sentence of two years in prison after being found guilty of 50,700 aggrevated computer break-ins. The computer break-ins involved hijacking emails, blocking traffic to websites and the theft of credit card details.
According to the BBC, the teenager called Julius “Zeekill” Kivimaki and “untouchable hacker god” on Twitter was ordered by the court to return $7,300 in property, which he had acquired through illegal means. The teen was also asked to speak against cyber crime besides having all his online activities monitored. In delivering the ruling, the judge ruled that the teenager was only 15 and 16, when he carried out the crimes meaning he lacked capacity to understand the harmfulness of the crimes. The judge also considered the fact that he had been imprisoned for about a month during the pre-trial investigation.
The teenage was involved in a series of high profile cyber crimes with his attacks. He was for instance able to exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe software thereby gaining access to over 50,000 servers. He also used stolen credit card information to buy Champagne. The teen also stole 7GB of email data from MIT, after routing it through a Harvard University server. In one case, he engaged in swatting, the act of faking an emergency to prank the SWAT team to an individual’s home. There were also charges of money laundering using bitcoin, which he used to fund a trip to Mexico.
The teenager has also been linked to the Lizard Squad, a group of hackers responsible for the network attacks on X-Box and play station towards the end of December 2014. The hacks prevented individuals from playing with others online. The court did not include these activities in the charges leveled against him.
