Oxbridge And Kent Police Cyber Attacker Pleads Guilty

A 21-year-old male has pleaded guilty to Internet attacks on various websites, including those belonging to Oxford and Cambridge universities, and Kent Police.

Lewys Martin was charged last year and has now pleaded guilty to nine separate charges, for his part in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and attempted breaches carried out between 29 January and 1 February 2012, which he did under the pseudonym of Sl1ink.

It also emerged Martin hacked into an online account of a person whose computer he had fixed.

Kent police warning

Whilst he managed to cause disruption to the Oxford and Cambridge university websites, and Kent Police’s site, no data went missing and there was no prolonged downtime. Despite the limited damage, Kent Police said the impact was still felt.

“The attack on ours and other public-facing websites was serious and Martin’s intention was to cause as much disruption and failure as possible,” said Detective Chief Inspector Tom Richards of Kent Police.

“Resources had to be taken away from other duties in order to deal with this issue and, of course, any disruption to a website can result in disruption for the communities who view it.

“Anyone who thinks of carrying out these types of attacks will be tracked down and brought before the courts to face the consequence of their actions.”

Prosecutor Ken Goss from the CPS South East Complex Casework Unit added: “Both Oxford and Cambridge Universities estimate that around two weeks’ worth of man hours were spent, dealing with the cyber attacks.”

Both Oxford and Cambridge were targeted by hackers last year. TechWeekEurope exclusively revealed in August 2012 that the University of Oxford had to shore up its security, after a group claiming to be associated with Anonymous hacked a Department of Physics server.

That same month, NullCrew, a hacktivist group, claimed to have broken into the University of Cambridge’s email system.

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