According to United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Kenneth W. Kaiser, special agent incharge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New England, John Bombard of Seminole, Fla. was charged with two counts of Intentionally Accessing a Protected Computer Without Authorisation.
Bombard allegedly controlled his network of zombie machines through a series of computers, including those located at two major universities, using a variant of the GAOBOT worm to compromise these systems.
According to the charges, Bombard's botnet hit servers belonging to Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai Technologies with a distributed denial of service attack.
During the attack, customers were unable to access Akamai's website, costing the company thousands in lost revenue.
Bombard faces two years in jail, an additional year of supervised release and up to $400,000 in fines if he is convicted.
Florida hacker faces two years in jail, $400,000 fine
The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it charged a Florida man today in federal court for establishing a botnet from which he launched a denial of service attack on a Massachusetts technology firm.
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