Two members of the hacking group Anonymous were jailed yesterday for carrying out cyber attacks on several major websites. They were found guilty of causing “unprecedented harm” to Visa, MasterCard and PayPal.

These attacks took place under the banner, “Operation Payback”, and involved a “distributed denial of service” (DDoS) tactic. In short, DDoS attacks cripple websites by flooding them with requests until they crash.

During the trail it was revealed that the nine-day online attack on PayPal cost the company R50m, and delayed payments for gifts during the Christmas period. It was so effective that 104 Paypal staff members were forced to put aside their usual tasks to create a defence strategy for PayPal.

The financial impact of attacks on MasterCard and Visa were not revealed to the court.

But who are these “anonymous” hackers and what do they look like?

First up is the leader of the group, Christopher Weatherhead (22), who operates under the alias, “Nerdo”. Nerdo (pictured below) was given an 18-month sentence.

Nerdo was not the only one jailed. His comrade, Ashley Rhodes (below), was also jailed for seven months. Rhodes admitted to conspiring to impair the operation of computers.

A third member of the tribe, Peter Gibson (24), was deemed to have played a lesser role in the conspiracy, and was given a six-month suspended sentence.

A fourth hacker, Jake Birchall (18), will be sentenced at a later date.

[Source: Guardian]