Anonymous hacker guilty of Mastercard, Paypal DDoS attacks
updated 01:33 pm EST, Fri December 7, 2012
British hacker faces 10 years in prison for attacks
A British hacker has been found guilty for his part in a Distributed Denial of Service attack against payment services. Anonymous member Christopher Weatherhead, attacked MasterCard, Visa, and Paypal after they turned away from processing payments for Wikileaks, as well as music industry companies, in attacks costing those involved over $5.6 million.
The DDoS, called Operation Payback, was conducted by Weatherhead, whom used pseudonyms "Nerdo" and "NikonElite", as well as three other members of the hacker collective, according to the Associated Press. Jake Birchall, Ashley Rhodes, and Peter Gibson pleaded guilty earlier this year for their part in attacking the payment systems, as well as the DDoS of the British Recorded Music Industry, Ministry of Sound, and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Weatherhead will be sentenced at a later date and faces up to 10 years in prison for the cyberattacks.
