Courts / Offaly / Report

Hacker redirected Sun website users to hoax article on Rupert Murdoch's death

Date
2017-03-21

Stage
Sentence

Primary locality
Birr

County
Offaly

Summary

Donncha O'Cearbhaill, 24, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of criminal damage to data on thesun.co.uk, a website owned by News International. The defendant admitted to inserting a "Trojan horse" into the site in July 2011, which redirected visitors to a hoax article alleging media mogul Rupert Murdoch had died, and later to the Lulzsec Twitter feed. Judge Martin Nolan handed down a nine-month sentence, which was suspended on a number of conditions. The court heard that the hacks caused the servers to be shut down for two hours and required a three-week rebuild. O'Cearbhaill stated he acted in retaliation for the phone hacking scandal and expressed regret for his reckless actions. Defense counsel Giollaíosa O'Lideadha SC requested disposal under the Probation Act to avoid a criminal record, highlighting the defendant's youth at the time of the offense and his current role as an online security advisor. A letter from Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave described O'Cearbhaill as possessing rare intelligence. The judge noted the defendant knowingly committed the damaging acts but accepted his young age. No incoming IP addresses were captured due to the use of the Tor browser, though forensic analysis of a Dell laptop and Samsung notebook found a saved image matching the hoax site. O'Cearbhaill was arrested in September 2011 and cooperated with gardaí, admitting to using the username "Palladium" in chat logs.

Who, what, where, when and why

What: Report matter: Hacker redirected Sun website users to hoax article on Rupert Murdoch's death. Charges or matters: two counts of criminal damage to data on the The Sun newspaper website, thesun.co.uk, which is owned by News International. Procedural stage: sentence

When: