Daily Mail– A 16-year-old boy has been spared detention after launching cyber attacks on websites across the world and sending bomb hoaxes to airlines via Twitter.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked 12 websites including his local police force and SeaWorld when he was aged 14 and 15.
He targeted government and pro-hunting sites in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America from the laptop in his bedroom at home in Plympton, near Plymouth, Devon.
The boy admitted three offences under Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act, relating to the DDoS attacks, and was convicted of two charges under Section 51 of the Criminal Law Act.
These related to bomb hoaxes he sent through Twitter to American Airlines, the White House and Delta Air Lines on February 13 last year.
One posted at 6.46pm to American Airlines read: ‘One of those lovely Boeing airplanes has a tick, tick, ticking in it. Hurry gentlemen, the clock is ticking.’
Another, sent six minutes earlier to Delta Air Lines, read: ‘There’s a nice tick, tick in one of those lovely Boeing planes, high quality.’
District Judge Diane Baker told the boy, who sat next to his mother at Plymouth Youth Court, that she had been minded to sentence him to a 12-month detention and training order.
She instead handed him a two-year youth rehabilitation order, along with 120 hours reparation and to attend courses, after deciding that custody would ‘destroy’ him.
‘Your offending, in my mind, crosses the custody threshold – I say that because the offending involved significant planning,’ the judge said.
‘The DDoS attacks were sophisticated. On your own admission you became a person to whom others came for advice on how to carry them out.
‘With the bomb hoaxes, again, a significant level of planning – in particular sophistication in ensuring that your actions were not traced.
‘These were a whole series of offences over a period of time. There’s no doubt that you knew what you were doing. You knew it was serious.
‘I don’t think there would be any positive outcome for you going into a youth detention centre – I think it would destroy you.
‘If it would destroy you how could I come to the conclusion that I am concerned with your welfare and rehabilitation as well as punishment?’
The boy’s mother was ordered to pay £620 in prosecution costs.
‘You have put your family through hell during this period of time,’ the judge told the teenager, adding that his laptop will now be destroyed.
‘I have to say I think it is very unhealthy that a young man of this age spends so much time alone on the computer.
‘I don’t think there’s anything that Mum could have done in the circumstances because she had absolutely no idea at the involvement he had.’