(CHICAGO) A Tennessee man admitted in federal court Tuesday that he joined the hacker group NullCrew in an attack on a “large Canadian telecommunications company” two years ago, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
Timothy French, 21, faces up to 10 years in prison and may be ordered to pay restitution up to $792,000 at his sentencing hearing, set for March 9. His eventual prison sentence is more likely to fall between 46 and 57 months. French signed a plea declaration and admitted his guilt to U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman.
French was accused in June 2014 of conspiring with others to take, and post online, 12,000 customer usernames and passwords from Bell Canada. On Tuesday, he admitted he joined NullCrew, launched the cyber-attack through a Naperville computer server and participated in six additional attacks targeting unidentified businesses, universities and governments. NullCrew tried to publicly embarrass its targets for political reasons, boasting about its successes on Twitter.
French admitted Tuesday to using the online handles “Orbit,” “@Orbit_g1rl,” “crysis,” “rootcrysis” and “c0rps3.” The feds say someone using the “rootcrysis” handle boasted in an online chat with an undercover informant after the attack on Bell Canada, writing, “Yup LOL. Gained ALOTTTTTTT of attention. I’ve done like four interviews.”
A criminal complaint accused French of involvement in several cyber attacks by NullCrew between July 2013 and April 2014. In each attack, NullCrew released information from the victims’ computers and caused “significant financial damages to the universities and companies,” according to prosecutors. The group boasted of wanting to “f— the system” and in 2012 claimed credit for hacking the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense.
Prosecutors say French has struggled since his arrest to stay away from drugs — and from the Internet. U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel G. Martin ordered French locked up in May over allegations of drug use, skipping drug tests and missing counseling appointments. The judge later let him live with his father in Tennessee, but French was caught lurking in his car outside a Tennessee McDonald’s in September, taking advantage of the restaurant’s free Wi-Fi signal. Martin ordered him locked up again four weeks ago, and he remains in federal custody.
