17 year old executed a DDoS attack on a major online gambling site

The ease with which a seventeen-year-old British teenager was able to execute a Distributed Denial of Services attack on a large and still unidentified online gambling site two years ago was in the headlines again this week when the teenager came up for sentencing in the Nottingham Crown Court.

Max Dean Whitehouse escaped lightly with a twelve month suspended sentence after the court was told that his efforts caused lost business of around £18,000.

Whitehouse was mischievous but a far cry from the malignant and criminal hackers who usually feature in this sort of extortion, and his amateurism was illustrated by his boasts on his mother’s Twitter account that he would cripple the gambling site using DDoS methods.

Nevertheless, the fact that a teenager can mount such an attack, albeit with limited success, again highlights the need for regular reviews of security measures at industry websites.

The presiding judge told Whitehouse that he clearly spent way too much time on his computer and urged him to get out and experience real life.