Lulzsec Hackers Plead Guilty

In the lulziest move ever by members of the hacker group Lulzsec, three members pleaded guilty to a UK court of hacking charges against Sony, FoxNews and other sites.

From Sophos here:

Southwark Crown Court in London has heard that three members of the LulzSec hacking gang have chosen to plead guilty to charges that they launched distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against a series of organisations including the CIA and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The LulzSec hacking gang, a splinter group from the Anonymous hacktivist movement, managed to gain enormous media coverage for their series of attacks during 2011.

Jake Davis (known by his internet handle of “Topiary”) and 18-year-old Mustafa Al-Bassam (“Tflow”) pleaded guilty to flooding the law enforcement agencies’ websites with internet traffic, as well as those of Sony, News International and the controversial Westboro Baptist Church.

The hackers are said to have hacked into computer networks belonging to the likes of Fox TV network and Sony to steal confidential information, and redirect visitors to spoof websites.

26-year-old fellow hacker Ryan Ackroyd (who posed as a teenage girl hacker called “Kayla”) also entered a last minute guilty plea to one count of computer hacking. He will now not face trial in regards to another count of operating a DDoS attack, an offence which will lie on file.

I think their sentences in the UK will be much less harsh than they would have received in a US court. But their guilty pleas certainly filled me with my lulz for the day.