Over the Christmas holidays both PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE were hit by outages, with the source eventually being discovered to be a DDoS attack on the services. A group called Lizard Squad took credit for bringing the services down, stopping people from enjoying some online gaming. The actions of the group prompted law enforcement to get involved, including the UK police, Finnish authorities, and the FBI.
Now one of the members of Lizard Squad, Julius Kivimaki, has faced trial in Finland. He was charged on 50,000 offences including online harassment, fraud, and data breaches. The judge handed down a two year suspended sentence, meaning Julius avoids jail time for now. If he breaks further laws or any agreements made with the courts then he will serve those two years in prison plus any time associated to other crimes he may break.
Correction: Contrary to previous reports, Kivimaki has not been convicted of the PSN and Xbox attacks. He was prosecuted for hacking MIT, Harvard University, creating botnets and using stolen credit cards. The article above has been amended to reflect this.
UPDATE: John Smedley, CEO of Daybreak Game Company (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) was one of the victims of Kivimaki. He grounded Smedley’s plane from Dallas to San Diego last August by calling in a bomb threat.
John seems unhappy with the sentence and let everyone know on Twitter. “It’s important to note – [Kivimaki] was convicted of crimes that had nothing to do YET with the PSN DDOS over Christmas (yes he was part of that),” he tweeted.
“That was the piece of garbage that brought my plane down, leaked my information and did all kinds of other crap to me,” he added.
Smedley went on to say that there another 15 criminal convictions against Kivimaki that have yet to make it to court and then threatened separate legal action against Kivimaki’s parents.
His parents need to be held accountable for his actions in addition to his going to jail. @what_security – So I'm coming for you Julius.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) July 8, 2015
Source:GameSpot
Avenger
I’m missing some info about this I know it. 2 years for 50,000 offences, sounds suspiciously light.
Aran Suddi
Speculating here but a lot of deals were probably struck. Or he has the best damn defence lawyer in the world.
hazelam
don’t forget, two years he might not even serve.
SamBeThyName
he won’t do any time. People get actually banged up for 2 years for selling a bit of weed. Ridiculous
freezebug2
Wow, that is ridiculous considering that it probably has less long term health negatives than alcohol or tobacco which are perfectly purple and legal to indulge in!
Starman
Well he got off lightly didn’t he. Not exactly the deterrent I expect people were hoping for.
hazelam
why not bake him a cake too?
how many offences would he have had to actually commit to get jail time?
was 50000 not enough?
JR.
I take it they don’t have the death penalty in Finland?
stefhutch20
The important thing to bear in mind here is that he was successfully tracked down and convicted. Hopefully the possibility of getting a criminal record will be enough of a deterrent to stop people from performing attacks like this in the future (although I have my doubts).
h6exx
He was underage when he committed the crimes and the court took that into account. Also the fact he was an alleged member of the lizard squad was not mentioned in court..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33442419
McProley
To be fair, the Finnish government probably have their own agenda. As he is still only 17 they probably want to mold him into being a cyber crime agent for themmselves. Anti cyber crime fighting was ordered as part of his rehabilitation. Whether or not it’ll work is another matter
homerjnick
Even more moronic is him boasting how he got away with it on Twitter.
TSBonyman
Lizard squad have tweeted, joking that they are planning on moving to Finland as the sentencing there is so lenient. Surely they must realise that their former comrade has now turned informant against them.
GTRsannin
It is lenient life sentence here is around 12 years but you can get out in less than 5 for good behavior