A Devon teenager has been found guilty of making bomb threats to two US airlines, just days after admitting DDoS offenses against the websites of Seaworld and several other organizations.
The 16-year-old from Plymouth was found guilty of making the Twitter-based threats to American Airlines and Delta Airline.
The teen originally admitted to the offenses but then changed his plea after claiming he had only done so as his lawyer recommended that was the best way to escape with a caution, according to the Plymouth Herald.
At Plymouth Magistrates Court, District Judge Diana Baker refused to believe the boy’s claims that his computer had been hacked via a RAT by a Skype contact to send out the Twitter messages.
"It is unlikely that a RAT was responsible for the messages,” she is reported as saying. “I am sure that it was you personally, on the encouragement of 'Whitehat' [the Skype user], who sent the bomb hoax messages. You did so knowing how serious such actions would be. The planning involved was both detailed and sophisticated.”
The teen admitted in court last week three charges of performing actions designed to hinder access to a program under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 – effectively DDoS attacks against at least 10 sites.
He was 15 at the time of the incidents, in which he targeted sites around the world including SeaWorld in Orlando and that of a small town in southern Honshu, Japan, which is known for dolphin hunting.
The 16-year-old claimed he had carried out the attacks because he supported animal rights, according to The Guardian, although he’s also said to have DDoS-ed the site of the Devon and Cornwall police.
It’s not known whether the youth was affiliated with online hacking collective Anonymous, which has itself focused similar attacks on Japanese organizations as part of its #OpKillingBay campaign, targeting specifically the practice of dolphin-hunting around the town of Taiji.