Archive: FBI headquarters in Washington, June 2024. Photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0; cropped.
A federal judge in Virginia sentenced Syrian hacker Ahmad Umar Agha to 42 months in prison Thursday for attacks carried out on behalf of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government, including a 2013 false news-agency tweet that briefly erased $136 billion from the value of Dow Jones stocks, the Justice Department said.
The sentence is the new development. The market disruption happened more than 13 years ago, not Thursday.
Agha, also known as “Th3Pr0,” hacked approximately 47 Western media organizations, businesses, nonprofit groups and U.S. and allied government entities, according to the department’s sentencing announcement. Prosecutors said the conspiracy was organized by members of Assad’s inner circle, including the commander of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate.
On April 23, 2013, Agha used a compromised news agency Twitter account to falsely report that explosions at the White House had injured President Barack Obama, the department said. The resulting plunge in stock values was temporary.
The case also shows the cost of cyberattacks beyond a stolen account. One online publishing-services company lost approximately $35,000 a day for about six months, while a global nonprofit incurred $480,000 in losses, including security upgrades and retraining more than 800 staff members, according to court filings described by prosecutors.
Agha also redirected visitors to a Marine Corps recruiting website to material urging Marines to refuse orders, and attempted to gain control of White House social media accounts, the department said.
Agha had spent more than a decade as a fugitive. His coconspirator Firas Dardar remains a fugitive, according to the announcement. The FBI’s Washington Field Office investigated the case with the FBI’s Cyber Division.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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