An “expanding” file for a “small fish” of computer hacking: a French “gamer” accused of attacks against the Cned (distance education) and the video game giant Ubisoft was explained during a correctional hearing in Paris on Monday 12 of June.
Yanni O., whose player nickname is Y4nn0XX, is being targeted in three separate cases that occurred between 2020 and the summer of 2022 in France and Canada. After an eight-hour hearing, deliberation was set for July 3. The prosecutor requested 3 years in prison, including 2 years accompanied by a suspended probation.
The defendant’s lawyer, however, raised an exception to invalidity over an important part of the file, arguing that the computer data seized during an initial investigation had been reused without legal grounds to link it to subsequent events.
“Intolerant of frustration”
The debates made it difficult to lift the veil on the personality of the defendant, a wiry 22-year-old dressed all in black, described as a “little fish” by a lawyer for the civil parties but “intelligent” and “noxious” by the investigator. Above all, psychiatrists have detected in him a “paranoid schizophrenia” that translates into an “attenuation of responsibility.”
An inveterate cheater in many video games, banned countless times for his actions, Yanni O. seems “intolerant of frustration”, the magistrates guess. In the most recent case, he is accused of attacking the company Fuse III, which runs multiplayer servers for the popular Minecraft title, while it was under judicial review.
If you deny being at the origin of “denial-of-service” (DDoS) attacks that have led to the destruction of computer equipment, according to the company, you must have directed direct threats at an employee, posted hate speech of a terrorist nature on a discussion forum and being the author of a song published on YouTube where he presents his complaints against the company.
He also admits having briefly joined, a year earlier, the loud attacks that led to the blocking of the “My class at home” service launched by the Cned (national center for distance education) as part of the new measures to combat the Pandemic. of COVID-19.
raise banishments
His motivations: “to make noise” and gain subscribers on Twitter, he explains between two “nervous” laughs. The defendant is also accused of several phone jokes that led to the intervention of the police forces after the denunciation of criminal acts made up from scratch (practice called “swatting” in the world of video games).
His stunt was an anonymous call reporting a fake hostage-taking at video game giant Ubisoft’s facility in Montreal on November 13, 2020, leading to the evacuation over 8 hours of some 400 people and children from a crib.
Then he wanted to lift the banishment measures to which he was subject on the Rainbow 6 shooter, dedicated to the fight against terrorism.
To hide his phone number, the hacker, unemployed and living with his parents on the outskirts of Paris, diverted remote communication software, traces of use of which were found on his computer, through servers located in Russia.
“I don’t remember doing that,” he told the court, before mentioning an accomplice: an “imaginary double” according to Ubisoft’s lawyer. He then he breathes: “I didn’t realize it was bad (serious). It was like in a game.”
Source: BFM TV
