Britain: Prison for cyber extremist who hacked government websites in Yemen and Israel

Arab Sea Newspaper - News Updates

Arabian Sea - Britain - Follow-ups: A British court has sentenced a young man to 20 months in prison after convicting him of hacking thousands of websites in North America, Yemen, and Israel and stealing personal data of millions of users. The National Crime Agency (NCA) said that Al-Taheri Al-Mashreqi, 26, from Rotherham, was linked to the "Yemen Electronic Army" and "Spider Team" groups, and used multiple aliases to publish political and ideological messages through hidden pages he planted within the targeted sites. The agency explained that Al-Mashreqi hacked Yemeni government websites and religious institutions in Canada and the United States, in addition to the "California State Water Resources Control Board" website and an Israeli news website, noting that he kept data of more than four million Facebook users, along with passwords for services such as "Netflix" and "PayPal." Al-Mashreqi was scheduled to stand trial last March on several charges related to computer misuse, but he pleaded guilty to nine of them, leading to the verdict issued against him on August 15 at Sheffield Crown Court. Paul Foster, head of the Cyber Crime Unit at the agency, said: "Al-Mashreqi's attacks caused significant damage to organizations and users, and showed how data theft can turn into a threat to millions of people. This case has proven that cybercriminals are not immune from prosecution."