0
1 total views, 1 views today
Swatting is the harassment tactic of deceiving an emergency
service into sending a police and … The term derives from the law
enforcement unit “SWAT”
In the United States, a SWAT (Special Weapons
and Tactics) team is a law enforcement unit … that he first
envisioned “SWAT” as an acronym for “Special
Weapons Attack Team” in 1967, but later accepted
“Special Weapons and Tactics”
A teenager who rocked the US intelligence community when he
tricked his way into top officials’ accounts in a campaign of
“cyberterrorism” has been locked up for two years.
Kane Gamble, 18, founder of Crackas With Attitude (CWA),
admitted targeting high-profile figures such as the then CIA chief,
John Brennan, and his wife, and the FBI deputy director, Mark
Giuliano, from his family home on a Leicestershire housing
estate.
Between June 2015 and February 2016, he accessed email and phone
accounts to get his hands on “extremely sensitive” documents on
military and intelligence operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
Old Bailey was told.
Mr Justice Haddon-Cave handed him a deterrent sentence of two
years in youth detention.
He said Gamble had “revelled” in the attacks, adding: “This was
an extremely nasty campaign of politically motivated
cyberterrorism. The victims would have felt seriously
violated.”
Gamble had bragged at one point: “This is so serious I’m fucking
shaking. This has to be the biggest hack ever.”
He impersonated his victims and tricked call centres at
communications firms Comcast and Verizon into divulging
confidential information.
After targeting Brennan and his wife, Kathy, Gamble posted
anonymously on Twitter saying: “CIA set your game up homies. We own
everything. #freepalestine #CWA.” Other victims working under
President Barack Obama included James Clapper, the director of
national intelligence; the deputy national security adviser Avril
Haines; the senior science and technology adviser John Holdren; the
secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, and FBI special agent
Amy Hess.
Gamble taunted them, using a TV in Johnson’s family home to post
the message: “I own you.”
He boasted about calling him, saying he had “shreked him”.
He left a disturbing voicemail message for Johnson’s wife, Susan
DiMarco, asking: “Hi spooky, am I scaring you?”
Giuliano’s passwords were reset and he and his family were
bombarded with phone calls, resulting in them getting police
protection.
Gamble leaked some of the information he gathered using various
websites including WikiLeaks.
Holdren was harassed in a “swat” attack, when a hoax call was
made to local police resulting in officers going to his home.
Gamble, who was aged 15 and 16 at the time, was supported by his
mother when he appeared at the Old Bailey.
Prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones QC said aggravating features
included the “invasion” of victims’ professional and private lives
as well as their families.
He said: “So many of the American witnesses attest to a drop in
confidence in the use of portals, many of the agencies withdrawing
their contributions, reducing the effectiveness in the wider law
enforcement community in America.”
William Harbage QC, mitigating, said Gamble had a naive response
to what he read about in online chat rooms.
“In a naive, immature and childish way, he thought he could do
something about it, he could make a nuisance of himself by
targeting people in America and that would somehow get them to
change US policy as a result of what he was doing from his
bedroom.”
He said Gamble never meant to “harm and traumatise people on an
individual basis”.
Harbage added: “When members of the families were brought into
it, he did not think through the consequences. The thought seems to
have been: ‘I want to grab attention of the US government and
getting the families involved is some way that will grab attention
even more.’”
Harbage argued for a suspended sentence, saying Gamble was due
to sit GCSEs in June and hoped to read computer studies at
university and pursue a “useful” career.
Gamble, of Coalville, had pleaded guilty to eight charges of
performing a function with intent to secure unauthorised access to
computers and two charges of unauthorised modification of computer
material.
The judge also ordered the seizure of Gamble’s computers.
Post Views: 1