Phoenix, AR–An Arizona man was sentenced Tuesday in Phoenix, Arizona, for directing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at the computer networks in Madison, Wisconsin, federal prosecutors said.
Randall Charles Tucker, aka “Bitcoin Baron,” 23, of Apache Junction, Arizona, was sentenced to serve 20 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes of the District of Arizona. He was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $69,331.56 to the victims of his computer attacks. Tucker pleaded guilty on April 17, 2017 to one count of intentional damage to a protected computer.
According to admissions made in connection with his plea, between March 9 and March 14, 2015, Tucker executed a series of DDoS attacks against various city websites, including Madison, Wisconsin. A DDoS attack is a malicious attack where illegitimate network traffic is used to slow down or altogether crash a computer server, thereby denying service to legitimate users of the server. In addition to disabling the City of Madison’s website, the attack crippled the city’s Internet-connected emergency communication system, causing delays and outages in the ability of emergency responders to connect to the 911 center and degrading the system used to automatically dispatch the closest unit to a medical, fire, or other emergency.
Tucker, referring to himself as the “Bitcoin Baron,” boasted about his attacks via social media.
