Donald Ryan Austin, a 27-year-old programmer from of El Portal, Florida, was charged Th alongside hacking servers belonging to the Linux Kernel Organization (kernel.org) together with the Linux Foundation inward 2011, the Department of Justice announced on Thursday.
The Linux Kernel Organization runs kernel.org servers for distributing the Linux operating scheme kernel, which is the pump of the operating system, whereas the Linux Foundation is a carve upward grouping that supports kernel.org.
According to an indictment [PDF] unsealed past times federal prosecutors on Monday, Austin managed to bag login credentials of 1 of the Linux Kernel Organization scheme administrators inward 2011 together with used them to install a hard-to-detect malware backdoor, dubbed Phalanx, on servers belonging to the organization.
But what made the breach much significant? It's the open-source operating scheme that's existence used past times Millions of corporate together with authorities networks worldwide.
Using the Phalanx malware, Austin allegedly installed Ebury – a Trojan designed for Linux, FreeBSD or Solaris hacking – on a give away of servers run past times the Linux groups, which helped him gain access to the login credentials of people using the servers.
Austin allegedly infected Linux servers, including "Odin1," "Zeus1," together with "Pub3," which were leased past times the Linux Foundation for operating kernel.org. He too hacked the personal e-mail server of Linux Kernel Organization’s founder Peter Anvin.
Austin is too defendant of allegedly using his unauthorized admin privileges to insert messages into the scheme that would display when the servers restarted.
According to prosecutors, Austin's motive for the intrusion was to gain early on access to Linux software builds distributed through the www.kernel.org website.
Bad Luck! Hacker Arrested land Breaking Traffic Rules
This safety breach forced the Linux Foundation to shut downwardly kernel.org completely land a malware infection was cleared up, together with rebuild several of its servers. Miami Shores Police stopped Austin land breaking traffic rules on August 28 together with and then arrested later on identified equally a suspect inward 2011 case.
Austin is charged alongside iv counts of "intentional transmission causing impairment to a protected computer." He was released from jail on a bond of $50,000 provided past times the identify unit of measurement of his girlfriend.
Judge has ordered Austin to rest away from the Internet, computers, together with every type of social media or e-mail services, due to his "substance abuse history."
Austin is scheduled to look inward San Francisco federal courtroom on September 21 earlier the Honorable Sallie Kim, together with if constitute guilty, he faces a possible judgement of xl years inward prison theater equally good equally $2 Million inward fines.
