Big time hacker pleads guilty

Austin American-Statesman:
A self-described anarchist and “hacktivist” accused of stealing data from Austin-based Stratfor has pleaded guilty to charges he illegally accessed computer systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors.

Stratfor is an Austin-based Internet service that studies and writes reports on world affairs. The company lost thousands of customer records - including credit card numbers - when it was hacked in December 2011.

“For each of these hacks, I knew what I was doing was wrong,” Jeremy Hammond told a judge in federal court in Manhattan.

Prosecutors had alleged the cyber-attacks were carried out by Anonymous, the loosely organized worldwide hacking group that stole confidential information, defaced websites and temporarily put some victims out of business. Hammond was caught last year with the help of Hector Xavier Monsegur, a famous hacker known as Sabu who later helped law enforcement infiltrate Anonymous.

A criminal complaint had accused Hammond of pilfering information of more than 850,000 people via his attack on Austin-based Stratfor. Stratfor is short for Strategic Forecasting Inc.

Stratfor officials declined to comment Tuesday.

In a March 2012 speech after the attacks on his company, Stratfor CEO George Friedman said his company was wrongly portrayed as “a rogue organization engaged in espionage.”

“This was a very extraordinary hack,” Friedman said. “Their intention was to destroy us. Their intention was to silence us.”

Hammond was also accused of using the credit card numbers of Stratfor clients to make charges of at least $700,000. He allegedly bragged he even snared the personal data of a former U.S. vice president and one-time CIA director.
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This is a big time operator and I would be surprised if he does not get a long sentence.  Anonymous engaged in several very destructive cyber attacks and the one against Stratfor was significant.  The courts are going to have to decide how serious to treat those who engage in this conduct.

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