UK man jailed for running global cyberattack business

LONDON – A British man has been sentenced to two years in prison for creating and selling a program used in online attacks around the world.

Adam Mudd was 16 when he created Titanium Stresser, a program that carried out more than 1.7 million “denial of service” attacks on websites including gaming platforms Minecraft and Xbox Live.

Mudd, now 20, admitted creating and selling the program, earning 386,000 pounds ($495,000) in U.S. dollars and bitcoins. He also acknowledged carrying out 594 attacks himself.

Defence lawyer Ben Cooper said Mudd, who has Asperger’s syndrome, had become “lost in an alternate reality.”

Judge Michael Topolski told Mudd that his activities had caused damage “from Greenland to New Zealand, from Russia to Chile.” He handed down the sentence Tuesday at London’s Central Criminal Court.