Lizard Squad Founder Looking at More Than 2 Years in Federal Prison
You might have noticed that you were actually able to play your various gaming consoles this Christmas. Thankfully, that’s because this holiday season has been absent of any hackers attacking the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. Back in 2014 however, the hacker group Lizard Squad took down the PlayStation network and now one of the founding members is facing over 2 years in federal prison.
Yes, that’s right, one of the hackers responsible for the DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attack, on PSN three years ago has plead guilty in federal court and is looking at more than two years in a federal penitentiary. Prosecutors say they are recommending a sentence of two and a half years in prison for Zachary Buchta as long as he continues to cooperate with their investigation. Buchta, admitted that he was one of Lizard Squad’s founders, along with another hacker group called PoodleCorp as pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit damage to protected computers. This is a charge that can carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. As part of the plea deal, Buchta has agreed to pay $350,000 in restitution to the two online gambling companies that he victimized through his harassment schemes as well.
Buchta’s guilty plea does not appear to have anything to do with the 2014 attacks on PSN or Xbox Live, however it does relate to a harrassment-for-hire service he provided during the same year. Buchta claims that for $20, he would flood a phone number with recorded messages. In addition to the infamous attacks on both big gaming networks over the holiday season, Lizard Squad claimed responsibility for a fake bomb threat that diverted an American Airlines flight carrying the president of Sony Online Entertainment at the time, John Smedley. After Smedley’s division spun off and became Daybreak Games, Lizard Squad continued to target the company’s servers with DDoS attacks.
Julius Kivimaki, another member of Lizard Squad, was convicted in Finland back in 2015 on charges related to more than 50,000 occasions of cybercrime. One of these such offences involved the “swatting” of an American victim. Smedley says he was the victim of this swatting scheme on multiple occasions. As a result, Kivimaki was convicted and given a two-year suspended sentence.
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