Cambridge ‘Hacker’ Hit with Two Year Sentence

Lewys Martin, who identifies as a “crypto-anarchist, anarcho-capitalist”, has been sentenced for cyber-attacks against the University website.

Cybercrime hacking Kent Police lewys martin tom balderstone University of Cambridge

A hacker who attempted to break into the Cambridge University website was this week sentenced to 2 years imprisonment.

21 year old Lewys Martin, a member of the NullCrew hacktivist group going by the online name Sl1nk, pleaded guilty on 9 counts after his arrest earlier this year.

Martin flooded the university website with thousands of simultaneous requests for information, shutting down the site as servers failed to handle the load.

No info was stolen, fortunately, and the website returned online after an hour and a half.

Lewys Martin a.k.a Sl1nk has also laid claim to hacking NASA and the Pentagon

The attack has been played down as a ‘nuisance’ by the University Computing Service and Martin has been branded a pest rather than a viable threat.

The University claims that server security is airtight, although they have admitted that an estimated two weeks’ worth of man hours were used in dealing with the attack.

Reporters in court claimed that Martin appeared shocked and angered by authorities’ decision at his sentencing earlier this week. Several online voices, including bloggers and fellow ‘hacktivists’, have expressed outrage, claiming that the sentence is too severe as Martin did not cause a genuine security risk.

Investigating officer DC Nicky Holland-Day of Kent Police said that “those who try to carry out these attacks will be traced and brought before the courts, like Martin, to face the consequence of their actions.”