
Five million emails take down website...
Published: 12 July 2004 18:00 GMT
An aggrieved teenager, sacked from his £120-per-week job, has taken revenge on his bosses by bombarding them with five million emails, effectively crippling their website.
The spam-happy youngster was sacked for failing to complete his time-sheet and decided to launch a denial of service attack against those who had wronged him at UK insurers Domestic & General.
The five-million mail attack brought the company's servers to their knees, brought down the corporate website and cost an estimated £18,000 in lost business (an amount it would have taken almost three years for the youth to earn).
The angry youth has admitted using a spam tool which he downloaded from the internet, capable of sending 100 emails every second, according to the Sun newspaper.
According to the paper he claimed the emails were harmless and constituted nothing more offensive or damaging than "classic lines" from several movies - while clearly choosing not to revisit the fact he sent a server-crippling five million of them.
However, while he may well have been delighted with the chaos he caused, the adolescent cybercriminal may have been less thrilled when Scotland Yard's computer crime unit came knocking on his door.
He now faces six months in prison or a fine of up to £5,000.
The youngster has complained of unlawful arrest to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
you'd think they'd be able to defend themselves ag...
Anonymous
Perhaps his talents could have been put to a more ...
Anonymous
You think the IT Department got their time sheets ...
Martyn Beswick
Why would you think they would be able to defend t...
Patrick Archibald
"Scotland Yard's computer crime unit came knocking...
Harry Grove
My client is the largest privately owned forensic science service provider in the UK serving the police and crime enforcement agencies. With a team ...
Providing frontline policing, cutting crime, solving cases and saving lives calls for the most modern technology – and here in the Met we are ...
This is an unrivalled opportunity for university graduates or persons of graduate calibre to get your foot in the door of one of the UK`s prestigious ...
Agenda Setters 2009
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.
Stories from the web...
Copyright © 2008 CBS Interactive Limited. All rights reserved. Top of page
Clive Longbottom Windows 7: Not perfect - but ready for prime time Microsoft's latest OS fixes most of Vista's ills - but still has challenges ahead
Stephen Kleynhans Mind the details with Windows 7 Just because it might work better than Vista, it doesn't mean you can be sloppy