London-based Yahoo! hacker gets 11 years for SQLi mischief

A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to two years in prison for his part in a cyber attack on Yahoo! in 2012.

Nazariy Markuta, of Harlesden, London, was a member of the D33Ds Company network, which nicked over 450,000 customer email addresses and passwords from Yahoo! after an investigation by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA).

The breach in 2012 for which Markuta has been sentenced affected Yahoo Voices. Shortly after the attack, the D33Ds Company hacking group dumped the email addresses and passwords on an online forum set up and administered by Markuta.

It is not believed to be related to Yahoo!'s half-a-billion account breach from the same year.

Working in conjunction with the FBI, the NCA identified Markuta "as a key contributor to the group’s crimes through his activities on the website."

He was arrested in March 2015 by officers from the NCA's National Cyber Crime Unit at his home in north west London, when he was further found to have thousands of items of credit and debit card data in his possession.

NCA officers also discovered that Markuta, who favoured stealing data from companies vulnerable to SQL injection attacks, had also stolen data from a digital games reseller and SMS messaging service, causing losses of tens of thousands of pounds between 2012 and 2014.

Markuta pleaded guilty to two offences under the Serious Crime Act 2007, three offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and three offences under the Fraud Act 2006. For these eight offences he was sentenced to a total of 11 years and three months, but will serve each concurrently, meaning he will spend a maximum of two years in prison.

Luke Wyllie, a senior investigator at the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said: "Data theft and hacking aren’t victimless crimes or an online hobby. These acts cause financial and reputational damage to businesses and rob their clients of the security they expect and deserve online.

"The NCA continues to identify and pursue serious cyber criminals, however technologically proficient they may be," said Wyllie. "Markuta’s convictions are likely to have a significant impact on his future and we urge other young people with an interest in computers to consider how they can use their skills in ways that benefit themselves and others." ®