Hacker pleaded guilty to stealing satellite data from US DoD

The British hacker Sean Caffrey, 25, from Sutton Coldfield pleaded guilty to stealing satellite data from US Department of Defense (DoD).

The British hacker Sean Caffrey, 25, from Sutton Coldfield pleaded guilty to stealing user accounts from a U.S. military communications system.

According to the NCA, the man admitted in the Birmingham Crown Court to stealing information belonging to 800 users of a satellite communications system. Stolen data include ranks, usernames, and email addresses.

The hacker breached the US Department of Defense (DoD) on 15 June 2014, the officers from the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) and West Midlands Police arrested him in March 2015.

Caffrey also stole information associated with 30,000 satellite phones.

“A computer hacker has admitted stealing hundreds of user accounts from a US military communications system.” states the announcement published by the National Crime Agency.

Sean Caffrey, 25, of Sutton Coldfield, accessed and stole the ranks, usernames and email addresses of more than 800 users of a satellite communications system, as well as of about 30,000 satellite phones.

He pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court today to an offence under the Computer Misuse Act.”

Just after the hack, Caffrey posted a message online threatening the notorious group Lizard Squad that made the headlines with the DDoS attack that shut down Sony PSN and XBox live networks.

“We smite the Lizards, LizardSquad your time is near. We’re in your bases, we control your satellites. Department of Defense has no Defenses,” the message, posted on Pastebin, said.

The NCA experts found the stolen data on the Caffrey’s hard drives, forensics investigation revealed the young man used his PC to operate with an online messaging account linked to the attack.

“Janey Young, investigations manager at the NCA, said: “After strong partnership working between the NCA, the FBI and the DoD’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service there was very clear, very compelling evidence against Sean Caffrey.” Janey Young, the investigations manager at the NCA, said.

“No one should think that cyber crime is victimless or that they can get away with it.

“The NCA has people with skills like Caffrey’s, but they’re doing the opposite to him in detecting cyber criminals and bringing them to justice.

“We’re working to keep the internet a safe space for people who use it legitimately.”

According to the DoD, it spent approximately $628,000 to fix the damage caused by the hacker’s intrusion.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Department of Defense, Hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.