Two Europeans Indicted for US Cyber Attacks
October 3, 2008
A federal grand jury in the United States indicted Lee W. of Great Britain and Axel G. of Germany Thursday, Oct. 2, on charges of conspiracy and intentionally damaging computer networks that belonged to Miami-based Rapid Satellite and Los Angeles-based Weaknees. The companies sell digital video recorders and television satellite systems.
According to prosecutors the men, who are not in custody, allegedly launched a distributed denial-of-service attack against the two Web sites on behalf of a competitor.
This sort of attack generally involves a group of computers targeting a single online network, causing users and customers to experience error messages. The computers do not have to be housed in the same place, and can launch the attack from anywhere in the world.
If found, the two will most likely be extradited to the United States where they would face trial. The maximum sentence they could receive is 15 years.