A Rotherham man has been sentenced to 20 months behind bars for a range of hacktivism-related offenses.
Al-Tahery Al-Mashriky, 26, was arrested in 2022 by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers after they were tipped off by US investigators.
Most of his offending was linked to the unauthorized access to and defacement of official websites including the Yemen Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Yemen Ministry of Security Media and Israeli Live News.
After hacking the sites, he would download tools to scan for usernames and vulnerabilities, the NCA claimed.
His activities were linked to hacktivist groups such as the Yemen Cyber Army.
Although many of his targets were deliberately chosen for having poor security, Al-Mashriky claimed on one cybercrime forum to have compromised as many as 3000 in a single three-month period in 2022, the NCA said.
However, he didn’t just focus on low-level web defacements. NCA officers found the personal data ofover four million Facebook users on one of his laptops, as well as usernames and passwords for services like Netflix and Paypal.
These hinted at a more serious plan to commit large-scale identity fraudor potentially sell the data on to others.
Al-Mashriky was due to stand trial for 10 Computer Misuse Act offenses at Sheffield Crown Court in March but pleaded guilty to nine of them on March 17. He was sentenced in the same court on Friday.
“Al-Mashriky’s attacks crippled the websites targeted, causing significant disruption to their users and the organisations, just so that he could push the political and ideological views of the ‘Yemen Cyber Army,’” argued NCA National Cyber Crime Unit boss, Paul Foster.
“He had also stolen personal data that could have enabled him to target and defraud millions of people. Cybercrime can often appear faceless, with the belief that perpetrators hide in the shadows and can avoid detection. However, as this investigation shows, the NCA has the technical capability to pursue and identify offenders like Al-Mashriky and bring them to justice.”