Utah hacker pleads guilty to denial of service attacks targeting Xbox Live, Playstation Network and Steam

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for
the Southern District of California announced earlier this week
that Austin Thompson, 23, had entered a guilty plea for one
count of damage to a protected computer following an
investigation by the FBI’s San Diego field office.

Operating under the Twitter handle @DerpTrolling, Thompson made
a sport of incapacitating popular online gaming networks with
denial-of-service attacks when he was a teenager, between
December 2013 and January 2014.

The plea agreement describes how Thompson would announce the
attacks in advance via the @DerpTrolling Twitter account and
later share screenshots and more tweets as evidence of a
successful attack.

Multiple online gaming services, including Xbox Live,
PlayStation Network, Steam, and League of Legends were targeted
by @DerpTrolling. The attacks resulted in significant downtime
and delays, and the U.S Attorney reports at least $95,000 in
damages as a result of Thompson’s actions.

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There’s still no stated motive for the DoS attacks. The
DerpTrolling account seemed satisfied with disrupting online
gaming and creating chaos, going so far as to take requests
from followers. The U.S. Attorney’s office states that Thompson
is 23-years-old, which would make him 18 at the time of the
crime.

Damage to a protected computer is a federal felony charge and
Thompson could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up
to $250,000 with three years supervised release. Thompson’s
sentencing is set for March 1st, 2019.