Man Responsible for Sony Online Entertainment DoS Attacks Pleads Guilty

A Utah man charged with denial-of-service attacks in 2013-14 that affected Sony Online [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

A Utah man charged with denial-of-service attacks in 2013-14 that affected Sony Online Entertainment and other gaming companies has plead guilty to charges against him.

Variety reported that 23-year-old Austin Thompson from Utah attacked Sony Online Entertainment among other companies over the span of two months several years ago, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of California. DoS attacks are a way of interfering with a company's network by overloading it with traffic to cause a crash and result in user losing access to the service, something that gaming companies and other providers of online services have to deal with frequently enough for it to be an issue.

John Smedley, former president of Sony Online Entertainment, took note of such attacks years ago and said the situation might impact games until it was fixed, a common result of such attacks.

Thompson reportedly used the DerpTrolling Twitter account to share news of attacks and post evidence of successful takedowns, the account one that's still active but hasn't shared any tweets since 2016. According to a past report from The Guardian, the DerpTrolling group takes requests for attacks via phone and text and picks its targets accordingly based on people's input. Within the DerpTrolling Twitter account, the tweets over the course of several years showed that the group targeted games like League of Legends, Minecraft, and services like Battle.net and other online interfaces. Several of those from January 1, 2014, dealt specifically with Sony Online Entertainment and its services. The attacks against the company, according to the plea agreement, are estimated to have cost around $95,000 in damages.

"Denial-of-service attacks cost businesses millions of dollars annually," U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman said. "We are committed to finding and prosecuting those who disrupt businesses, often for nothing more than ego

Now that Thompson has plead guilty to the DoS attacks against Sony Online Entertainment and other organizations, he's been charged with damage to a protected computer. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years supervised release, though it's unclear at this time what his exact punishment will be. Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced on March 1, 2019.

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