A U.K. judge has sentenced four members of hacking collective LulzSec, an offshoot of hacking group Anonymous, for their role in taking down various corporate and government websites between February and September 2011, ZDNet reported. Judge Deborah Taylor sentenced 26-year old Ryan Ackroyd, 20-year old Jake Davis, 18-year old Mustafa al-Bassam and 21-year old Ryan Cleary in a London courtroom on Thursday.
Ackroyd received a prison sentence of up to 32 months, of which he will be required to serve at least half, while Davis was sentenced to two years in a young offenders institution, which he must remain at for at least a year. Bassam, who was a minor at the time of the hackings, received a suspended sentence of 20 months, and Cleary was sentenced to 32-months, of which he will be required to serve at least 16 months.
“You sought to amuse yourselves and wreaked destruction and havoc,” Judge Taylor said. “You cared nothing about the privacy of others, but kept your own identities hidden.”
All four pleaded guilty to taking part in denial-of-service attacks against Sony, News Corp., Nintendo, the CIA and other sites, however they denied posting personal information. Cleary received the harshest sentence for additional charges related to hacking computers belong to the Air Force, and is still awaiting sentencing for possessing child pornography.
