A man from Rotherham is now in jail for hacking many websites and stealing data from millions of people. Al-Tahery Al-Mashriky, 25, got a 20-month sentence.
NCA officers arrested Al-Mashriky in August 2022. This happened after US law enforcement gave them information about extremist hacker groups.
When officers looked at Al-Mashriky’s laptop, they found personal data for over four million Facebook users. He also had usernames and passwords for services like Netflix and PayPal. He was part of a group called the Yemen Cyber Army. Officers found this link using his social media and email.
Al-Mashriky broke into many websites. These included government sites in Yemen, like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Security Media. He also hacked an Israeli news site. Other targets were religious websites in Canada and the USA, and the website for the California State Water Board.
He added hidden pages to these sites. These pages showed his online names and shared his religious and political beliefs, the NCA said.
Al-Mashriky often went after websites with weak security. He was known in hacker circles for how many sites he could get into. He even said he hacked over 3,000 websites in just three months in 2022, using one of his online names.
For example, in February 2022, he hacked Israeli Live News. He got into the admin parts and downloaded the whole website. He also used tools to find weaknesses and logins on two Yemeni government sites.
Paul Foster, who heads the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, said Al-Mashriky’s attacks hurt the websites and their users a lot. He did this just to spread the Yemen Cyber Army’s ideas. Foster also said the stolen data could have let him trick and steal from millions of people.
Al-Mashriky pleaded guilty to nine charges under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. He was jailed on August 15 at Sheffield Crown Court.
Foster said that cybercrime can often seem like people hide easily. But, this case shows that the NCA can find these criminals. They have the skills to catch people like Al-Mashriky and bring them to justice.
