Student hacker 'cost PayPal $5 million' in series of cyber attacks

A UNIVERSITY student committed a series of cyber attacks as part of hacking group Anonymous that cost the website PayPal STG3.5 million ($5.4 million), a London court has heard.

Christopher Weatherhead, 22, is alleged to have taken part in the cyber campaign, which also attacked other sites including MasterCard, Visa, Ministry of Sound, the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

London's Southwark Crown Court heard the group initially targeted companies involved in the music industry and opponents of internet piracy, costing them thousands of dollars, but then broadened their attack to companies such as PayPal after it refused to process payments on behalf of WikiLeaks.

Opening the case on Thursday, prosecutor Sandip Patel said the group caused online payment processing site PayPal "enormous economic harm".


He said it was attacked after it decided not to process payments on behalf of the Wau Holland Foundation, an organisation involved in raising funds for WikiLeaks.

Three days later, on December 6, 2010, Weatherhead posted plans on an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel encouraging an attack on the online payments processing website.

Between December 8 and 17, 2010, PayPal was the victim of a series of attacks "which caused considerable damage to its reputation and loss of trade".

At least 104 employees from eBay, the parent company of PayPal, were employed to work on issues directly related to the attack for three weeks afterwards, the court heard.

PayPal also had to pay for further software and hardware to defend against similar future attacks.

Weatherhead denies a charge of conspiracy to impair the operation of computers between August 1, 2010 and January 22, 2011.

- AAP