FBI charges Indian-origin student for launching cyber-attacks in US

FBI has arrested an Indian-origin computer science student for launching a series of cyber attacks against a chat site, according to officials familiar with the incident.

Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma, 26, is charged for using a Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, tool to attack the computers of a San Francisco-based company that provides chat services to third-party websites.

Sharma has been indicted for transmitting a programme, information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer, United States Attorney Brian J Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge John F Bennett said.

Sharma was arraigned before federal Magistrate Judge Alka Saga in Los Angeles on Monday and was released on signature bond of $100,000.

According to information obtained from a court document, Sharma used a botnet called Xtreme Fire to launch DDoS attack. A DDoS attack is generally overwhelms a targeted computers system with external communication requests and disrupts legitimate traffic.

The FBI, which arrested Sharma, revealed that his arrest was a part of a joint anti-cybercrime operation carried by the US, Australia and 11 European countries. The five-day operation was conducted from December 5 under the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) in Netherlands.

“One of the key priorities of law enforcement should be to engage with these young people to prevent them from pursuing a criminal path, helping them understand how they can use their skills for more constructive purpose,” Steve Wilson, the head of EC3 said.

A total of 34 people were arrested during the operation, the FBI said without identifying the others or their countries they were arrested in. Many of them who were arrested during the five-day cybercrime operation were under the age of 20, the FBI said.