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Cyber Risks · Krebs on Security

Bomb Threat, DDoS Purveyor Gets Eight Years

Summary: Timothy Dalton Vaughn, 22, of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was sentenced to 95 months in prison for possessing 200 sexually explicit images and videos of children and 60 months on the remaining charge, to be served concurrently. A member of the Apophis Squad, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to convey threats to injure and false information about explosive devices, computer hacking, and possession of child pornography, after the group made bomb threats to more than 2,400 schools and ran a DDoS-for-hire service that demanded 1.5 bitcoin from a Long Beach company and attacked its website when it refused to pay.

Key Takeaway: The gang's DDoS-for-hire operation extorted victims directly - a 1.5 bitcoin demand, roughly $20,000 at the time, followed by an attack that disabled the company's site when it refused - and Vaughn's identity surfaced only through a leaked gaming-site database of 7.6 million accounts.

Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗

Topics
Data Breaches
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