Lizard Squad hacker guilty of 50,700 cybercrime charges

Victor Barreiro Jr.

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Lizard Squad hacker guilty of 50,700 cybercrime charges
Julius Kivimaki will serve a two-year suspended sentence and is 'ordered to fight against cybercrime.' He will not go to prison.

 

MANILA, Philippines – A member of the Lizard Squad hacking group responsible for a number of attacks on gaming websites and game platforms has been found guilty in Finland of 50,700 charges “related to computer crimes.”

Citing Finnish newspaper Kaleva, The Daily Dot reported that Julius “zeekill” Kivimaki was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence.

The news was also shared by the Lizard Squad Twitter account.



Kivimaki, a 17-year-old, was also “ordered to fight against cybercrime,” and will not go to prison.

Identified as a member of Lizard Squad in December by Krebs on Security, Kivimaki helped lead distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Sony’s Playstation Network last year.

One of Kivimaki’s victims, Blair Strater, told The Daily Dot he was “absolutely disgusted” by the ruling.

Strater felt the sentence was too light, as Kivimaki has called in fake threats to US law enforcement officers, resulting in SWAT teams arriving at the Strater house in a practice called “Swatting.”

Kivimaki also harassed the Straters through identity theft, Strater said.

“I’ve lost complete faith in the justice system, and that includes the FBI. He’s harmed American targets and the FBI should have stepped in by now,” Strater added.

“The reality is, Julius Kivimaki will never be made to pay for his crimes.” – Rappler.com

Hacker image from Shuterstock

Add a comment

Sort by

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

Summarize this article with AI

How does this make you feel?

Loading
Download the Rappler App!
Person, Human, Sleeve

author

Victor Barreiro Jr.

Victor Barreiro Jr is part of Rappler's Central Desk. An avid patron of role-playing games and science fiction and fantasy shows, he also yearns to do good in the world, and hopes his work with Rappler helps to increase the good that's out there.