Australian teen let off hook after DDoS campaign

An Australian teen managed to avoid any jail time despite pleading guilty to initiating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against the nation's largest bank, his school and the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network.

The Adelaide youth, who was not named, faced a three-year jail term after pleading guilty to “four counts of unauthorised impairment of computer systems,” according to The Adelaide Advertiser.

Court magistrate Cathy Deland, who was a Commonwealth Bank customer, said the teen's actions undoubtedly caused millions in damage, but believed he was unlikely to commit the same crime again and noted he just shut down the sites instead of using ransomware.

“I have no doubt that you would not have thought much about the consequences. I am in the difficult situation having to weigh up your incredible stupidity against… your rehabilitation,” The Advertiser quoted Deland as saying at the trial.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com