A 26-year-old man from South Yorkshire has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for cybercriminal activities, including hacktivist attacks and possession of user data, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced.
The man is Al-Tahery Al-Mashriky. The NCA identified him based on intelligence provided by law enforcement in the United States as part of an investigation into hacktivist attacks conducted by the groups named Spider Team and Yemen Cyber Army, which authorities described as “extremist hacker groups”.
Al-Mashriky was linked by investigators to the Yemen Cyber Army based on social media and email accounts. An analysis of his devices showed that he was responsible for attacks targeting organizations in North America, Yemen, and Israel.
The Yemen Cyber Army mostly defaced websites with political and ideological messages, and Al-Mashriky at one point boasted about hacking 3,000 websites over a period of three months in 2022.
Only a few victims have been named, including the Yemen Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Yemen Ministry of Security Media, Israeli Live News, and the California State Water Board. Faith websites in the US and Canada were also targeted, the NCA said.
In addition to evidence of hacktivist attacks, investigators discovered that Al-Mashriky’s laptop stored the personal data and credentials of millions of people, including Facebook, Netflix, and PayPal users.
The man was charged on ten counts and pleaded guilty to nine in March. He was sentenced to 20 months of prison last week.
“Al-Mashriky’s attacks crippled the websites targeted, causing significant disruption to their users and the organisations, just so that he could push the political and ideological views of the ‘Yemen Cyber Army’,” said Deputy Director Paul Foster, head of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit. “He had also stolen personal data that could have enabled him to target and defraud millions of people.”
“Cybercrime can often appear faceless, with the belief that perpetrators hide in the shadows and can avoid detection. However, as this investigation shows, the NCA has the technical capability to pursue and identify offenders like Al-Mashriky and bring them to justice,” Foster added.
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