A radical pro-Houthi cyber group affiliate who hacked Israeli, American, Canadian, and Yemeni websites was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment in the United Kingdom on Friday, according to the National Crime Agency.
Rotherham resident Al-Tahery Al-Mashriky had pleaded guilty to nine offenses on March 17, the NCA said on Saturday.
The 26-year-old South Yorkshire man was reportedly arrested in 2022 by the National Crime Agency after they were given intelligence by US law enforcement about the Yemen Cyber Army. Investigators linked Al-Mashriky to the radical group through his social media and email accounts.
Al-Mashriky would target low-security websites, often creating pages with messages about his “religious and political ideology.” According to the NCA, the hacker had claimed on a forum that he had hacked over 3,000 websites over three months.
The targets of the Yemen Cyber Army
Among Al-Mashriky’s crimes was the hacking of the Israeli Live News website in February 2022. He also hacked the Yemen Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Yemen Ministry of Security Media websites. In Canada and the US, the hacker attacked religious websites and that of the California State Water Board.
NCA Cyber Crime Unit head Deputy Director Pail Foster said on Saturday that “Al-Mashriky’s attacks crippled the websites targeted, causing significant disruption to their users and the organisations, just so that he could push the political and ideological views of the ‘Yemen Cyber Army.’”
Al-Mashriky’s computer was found to have stored personal data for four million Facebook users and the usernames and passwords for services including Netflix and PayPal.
“He had also stolen personal data that could have enabled him to target and defraud millions of people,” said Foster. “Cybercrime can often appear faceless, with the belief that perpetrators hide in the shadows and can avoid detection. However, as this investigation shows, the NCA has the technical capability to pursue and identify offenders like Al-Mashriky and bring them to justice.”