A co-founder of a Cybersecurity firm is said to have admitted to committing a cybercrime of hiring hackers to carry out cyberattacks against other companies. The culprit in a discussion is Tucker Preston from Georgia who confessed before the legal attorney that he hired threat actors to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks between Dec’15 and Feb’16.
What’s interesting in this news is that the co-founder who is just 22 years in age is reported to be well knowledgeable in coding, program functioning and has admitted that his attacks have caused at least $5000 of damage to the businesses he targeted.
According to the statement released by New Jersey court, Preston was a co-founder of BackConnect Security LLC who made agreements with hackers and clients to launch cyber attacks on SMBs and some technology startups. NJ Court reported that his company had a habit of hijacking internet addresses space which it did not own in disguise of offering DDoS mitigation. But the court did not specify any names of the targeted companies.
Preston is said to face a imprisonment sentence of 10 years or a fine of up to $250,000 or 2 times the gross gain he bagged from the cyber offense. However, the culprit will be made to reappear before the court on May 7th this year for the final hearing.
US Attorney Craig Carpentino applauded FBI and other law enforcement agencies for successfully investigating on the guilty plea of Preston.
Note- More details about the cyber attack can be found on the official blog of Brian Krebs.
