SCIENTOLOGY
CANBERRA
NEWS ARCHIVE
NEWS
RELEASE
For Immediate Distribution
May 11, 2009
Thomas P. O’Brien
United States Attorney
Central District of California
Thom Mrozek, Public Affairs Officer
(213) 894-6947
thom.mrozek@usdoj.gov
www.usdoj.gov/usao/cac
NEW JERSEY MAN PLEADS
GUILTY TO LAUNCHING ATTACK THAT
SHUT DOWN CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY WEBSITES
NEWARK,
New Jersey – A New Jersey man pleaded
guilty today to his role in a cyber attack on Church of Scientology
websites in January 2008 that rendered the websites unavailable.
Dmitriy
Guzner, 19, of Verona, New Jersey, pleaded
guilty to computer hacking charges originally filed in Los Angeles for
his role in the distributed denial
of service (DDOS) attack against the Scientology websites. A DDOS
attack occurs where a large amount of malicious Internet traffic is
directed at a website or a set of websites. The target websites are
unable to handle the high volume of Internet
traffic and therefore become unavailable to legitimate users.
According
to the criminal information filed last year
in United States District Court in Los Angeles, Guzner participated in
the attack because he considered himself a member of an underground
group called “Anonymous,” a group that has
led protests against the Church of Scientology at various locations
across the country.
Guzner is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge
Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. on August 24. As a result of today’s
guilty plea, Guzner faces a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in
federal prison.
This
case was investigated by the Los Angeles Field
Office Electronic Crimes Task Force, which includes the United States
Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles
Police Department. The New York Field Office Electronic Crimes Task
Force, and the Newark Field Office and the New Haven Resident Office of
United States Secret Service assisted in the
investigation.
CONTACT:
Assistant United States Attorney Wesley L.
Hsu
Chief, Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section
(213) 894-3045
Release No. 09-061
|
