Brit teen who hacked Seaworld and sent bomb threats to airlines because he wanted to be ‘cool’ avoids jail
He sent messages to American Airlines and Delta Airlines via Twitter referring to a "tick, tick, ticking" sound on their planes
A BRITISH teenager who launched global cyber attacks that cost Seaworld almost £500,000 so he would be "cool" and get more Twitter followers has narrowly avoided 12 month behind bars.
The youth was just 14 when he started hacking and said he did it because of his stance on animal welfare issues and because he wanted to be "cool", a court heard.
The young cyber crook brought down around a dozen sites including Seaworld in Florida and Devon and Cornwall Police.
He also sent messages to American Airlines and Delta Airlines via Twitter referring to a "tick, tick, ticking" sound on their planes.
Both messages read: "Sorry gentlemen, the clock is ticking," and were immediately passed to the FBI and the White House.
In 2014 the fair haired youth hacked Seaworld which received threats and also distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks to its 11 websites.
One of those attacks lasted nearly three days.
The prosecutor added: "The attacks had a significant and detrimental financial effect on Seaworld as an organisation, which included increased labour costs to respond to the attacks, strengthening of infrastructure to protect against future attacks and sales revenue."
The marine animal park chain estimated the direct financial impact to be in the region of £359,000 and indirectly to have cost a further £99,000 to stop the same happening in future.
The teenager, now 16, also attacked his local Devon and Cornwall police force website – which was unavailable for 44 minutes.
The boy, from Plymouth, Devon, who can not be named for legal reasons, was previously told that a custodial sentence was likely.
But was allowed to walk free by District Judge Diane Baker.
"I have to say that your offending in my mind crosses the custodial threshold," she said. The offences involved significant planning.
"When I consider your age and immaturity I balance that with the fact that you knew what you were doing.
"You knew it was illegal - you had looked up the charges on the website. Did you really consider the consequences of your actions?
"I think you got carried away by the fact that you thought you were cool, you thought you were clever.
"So again, I go back to the seriousness of your offending. No doubt in my mind that this is so serious, a custodial sentence would be merited."
But she added: "I don't think there would be any been any benefit of you being in a youth detention centre.
"It would destroy you. You have put your family through hell during this period."
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The teen had previously admitted hacking the websites but denied sending the messages to the airlines.
There were five charges in total - two under Section 51 of the Criminal Law Act for the bomb threats and three under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act for the hacks.
Plymouth Youth Court heard that the boy's actions had a "detrimental financial impact" on some of the websites he attacked - many being foreign websites in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.
He had told a previous hearing he'd been "stitched up" by a Skype user called White Hat over the bomb hoaxes - who he claimed accessed his account remotely.
But District Judge Diane Baker found him guilty of the bomb hoaxes.
The youngster apologised to his court and family before the judge retired for a tense period to consider the sentence.
"I just want to say I'm really sorry for everything I've done," the 16-year-old said. "I didn't know how serious it was and I'm sorry to my family."
When the judge asked if his mother wanted to comment, the tearful woman said: "I don't think I can."
The court heard that he had said to White Hat - a friend he made online - that "hacking was a hobby" and that he was thinking about eventually hacking Snapchat accounts so that he could leak nude pictures.
Defending, his solicitor Kenneth Papenfus said that "he had shown remorse" and his crimes were the result of him withdrawing into a dark world because his friends were starting to get involved in drugs and other troubles.
"How it was that a young man withdrew into his own little world," he said.
"He was 14 and 15 years old at the time," he said.
"Now, at 16, he is a young man who has changed.
"Changed to the extent that nothing like this will ever happen again.
"I have noticed a progression in understanding the gravity of what he did and the fact that it was wrong.
"Every time I have spoken to him, he has explained a frustration at himself for not seeing, in that dark isolated world he was in, that what he did was wrong.
"He just thought that everything he was doing was abstract and that it didn't impact on the real world."
He added that the boy had started with computer games before progressing to hacking.
Judge Baker imposed a two-year youth rehabilitation order on him - ordering him to attend a thinking skills course, 120 hours of reparation, a victim awareness course and a two-year supervision requirement.
She also ordered the destruction of his computer.
She added: "I think it is very unhealthy that a young person of this age spends so much time, alone, in front of the computer."
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