Darkode Forum User Gets One Year Imprisonment For Stealing Bitcoin & Selling Botnets
Today, Rory Stephen Guidry, 29, of Opelousas, Louisiana, was sentenced to one year imprisonment for hacking-related crimes. He was arrested by the police on July 12, 2015 last summer, as part of the Darkode hacking forum operation.
In a plea deal signed on February 5, 2016, Guidry confessed that in 2014 he along with other hackers had taken part in an attack against a yet-unidentified online server, situated in Austin, Texas, 2016, according to the US Department of Justice.
At the beginning of 2015, Guidry moved from Liberty Hill, Texas, to his grandparents in Opelousas, Louisiana following a police investigation into this attack. However, that did not stop him in taking part in illegal undertakings.
Guidry started allocating malware and using the infected hosts to construct his very own botnet, while he was in Opelousas. He then tried to sell the botnet, consisting around 5,000 infected computers at the time, on the underground Darkode hacking forum.
Guidry also confessed to teaming up with another unidentified hacker to steal Bitcoin worth of $80,000, which they divided into half.
When the FBI undid the Darkode forum and searched Guidry’s house, they also found 5,000 credit card records that were stolen.
Guidry’s online handle was KMS, and he used the [email protected] Jabber ID. Security blogger Brian Krebs, who states that he conversed with the hacker many times via Jabber, stated last summer that “this person is perhaps the least culpable,” of all the twelve suspects arrested during the Darkode sting in the US.
Guidry played a vital role in exposing many members of the Lizard Squad hacking crew, which directed the investigators later to the Darkode forum, says Krebs.
He also disclosed that Guidry, along with a friend, was trying to bring down Darkode itself, but before they could follow suit with their plans, the authorities stepped in.
Whether it is true or not, Guidry did take part in the forum, which ultimately cost him his freedom.
