Cyberattacks, ‘ghost gun’ land Brandon man in prison

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This article was published 05/04/2023 (935 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — A Brandon man who operated a business that launched thousands of cyberattacks against companies across North America, and manufactured 3D-printed gun parts and at least one complete weapon at his residence, will spend the next three years in a federal prison.

In addition to his prison sentence, the 19-year-old will be under a three-year probation term upon release.

He pleaded guilty last year to various charges, including identity fraud and theft, unauthorized use of a computer, manufacturing a firearm, mischief to data, and possession of cocaine.

While the man is now an adult, most of his charges fall under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, so his name cannot be published.

Between Aug. 16, 2019, and Nov. 18, 2021, before he turned 18, the man collaborated with his co-accused, a man in Texas, to create a company that allowed customers to pay for a service that carried out online cyberattacks, called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

A DDoS attack sends an abundance of web traffic to a targeted system that causes it to become unreachable and eventually shut down.

The Brandon man was first arrested in March 2021, after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation linked him to a series of DDoS attacks and alerted Brandon Police Service.

Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup told court the attacks can result in downtime for the company, as it must stop its online services to deal with the attack, expenses and reputational losses.

Supreme Security Team marketed multiple tiers of service, which offered different rates for continued attacks on a given company.

“Pay more and the company you are targeting will get far more harassed over a longer period of time with a greater extent of potential harm,” Lonstrup said.

While it was the customer that chose the victims of the cyberattacks, many of them were politically motivated, the Crown said. A Black Lives Matter website, a women’s resource centre, school boards and police forces were among the 97,115 attacks carried out by the company.

“He put a terrible tool right in the hands of terrible actors.”

The man also operated a money-laundering website to avoid detection by authorities. He stole a woman’s identity, which he then used to open a bank account in her name and withdraw funds linked to the illegal activities.

The exact amount of money the man made from the DDoS attacks is unclear. While more damaging attacks would result in additional money for the man, prosecutors said they don’t know which customers paid their bills nor do they know the overhead costs for running the service.

However, Lonstrup said text messages indicated the man was making large amounts of money and using it to fund his 3D printer, which was being used to manufacture untraceable “ghost guns.”

In March 2022, after a search warrant was conducted on the home where the man was living, police found a 3D printer actively producing what officers believed to be the lower receiver of a handgun.

A second search warrant resulted in the seizure of a completed firearm — which was loaded with a high-capacity magazine that had most parts created with a 3D printer — alongside a large collection of ammunition and gun parts that had yet to be fully assembled.

“At the end of the day, whether this was for money or for the thrill of it, it is senselessly and shockingly callous to be indifferent and indifferent to the harms caused,” Lonstrup said.

The Crown attorney had recommended the man be sentenced to three years in prison — a mandatory minimum for the manufacture of guns — and an 18-month custody and community combined sentence, as well as a two-year probation, for his cybersecurity attacks.

Defence lawyer Mike Cook had asked the court the man receive no jail time for the youth offences, suggesting instead a probation term.

“I want to get this young man out of the correctional system as soon as possible… The crimes — they’re bad, they did have the potential of absolute devastation to companies,” Cook said. “They didn’t though. They didn’t take down a company, they didn’t cause a company to close their doors.”

Born and raised in Brandon by a single mom, the man would work on electrical projects as a boy. At a young age, he showed interest in computers and cellphones, first teaching himself how to build computers and later how to code. The man has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, ADHD and increased separation anxiety, which Cook said contributed to his client’s fixation with technology.

“This is not a bad guy who did some bad stuff,” Cook said. “This is a really good guy who did some bad things.”

The man gave a tearful apology to the court for what he has put his family and friends through, especially his mother: “I’ve dragged her through a lot.”

On Tuesday, in delivering the sentence, Judge Donovan Dvorak focused on the young man’s potential, stating he has heard of hackers turning their life around and using their skills to benefit society.

The judge advised the man to get a university degree in computer science, as he could be an asset to many companies. “What you have that most of the graduate computer scientists don’t have, and I’m not going to say that it’s a great thing, but you have some practical experience that others don’t have.”

The man had already been in custody for 15 months, meaning he will now serve two years in prison, followed by a three-year supervised probation order. He was also given a 10-year weapons prohibition.

— Brandon Sun