A 51 year old man is facing a lengthy prison sentence in the United Kingdom after admitting to a series of distributed denial of service attacks against social housing, social services and crime prevention websites.
Computer Weekly reports that Ian Sullivan, 51, of Bootle, Merseyside carried out targeted DDoS attacks that led to more than 300 websites being made inaccessible to their users. The attacks, that date back to 2013 were targeting a number of business and public service website, including multinational banks and social housing websites.
Other targets, according to Hacked, were support services for children undergoing adoption or divorcing parents, and crime reporting websites. The attacks were purely limited to DDoS, resulting in the sites being unavailable, but with no sensitive data being accessible.
Hacked adds that Sullivan was arrested after tweets published on his personal Twitter account referenced the actions. The Liverpool Echo explains that analysis of his computer found "software designed to take websites offline, and documentation linking him to other campaigns and activity carried out by Anonymous."
Steven Pye, senior operations manager at the National Cyber Crime Unit said, "Among other impacts, Sullivan’s actions are likely to have deprived vulnerable people of access to important information, ranging from where to get support on family breakup, to reporting crime anonymously."
"This multi-agency operation illustrates the commitment of the NCA and its partners to pursuing people who think they can criminally disrupt important public services or legitimate businesses."
Sullivan is due to be sentenced in May.
