13 Anonymous hackers plead guilty to PayPal site attack
London – Thirteen people have pleaded guilty to charges related to their involvement in the cyber-attack of PayPal’s website as part of the hacking group Anonymous.
The defendants acknowledged taking part in protests organized by Anonymous in December 2010 against Paypal.
According to the BBC, by pleading guilty, they will be hit with minor misdemeanour charges. Paypal had urged leniency by prosecutors.
The US Department of Justice accused them of intentionally damaging a protected computer.
Paypal, which is owned by eBay, said it was attacked from thousands of computers during the 2010 protest.
According to the report, Anonymous termed the attacks ‘Operation Paycheck’ and targeted Paypal and also larger credit card firms like Mastercard and Visa.
The targeted firms had stopped processing payments to Wikileaks after it published 700,000 classified US documents and diplomatic cables, the report added.
