12-Year-Old Canadian Boy Confesses Hacking Government Websites

According to the Toronto Sun, a 12-year-old Canadian boy has confessed his involvement in the hacking of a number of government websites as he traded the obtained information with hackers in exchange of videogames during the 2012 Quebec student protests.

The fifth-grade student appeared in court last week in school uniform, along with his father and lawyer. The list of affected websites includes Montreal Police, Chilean government website and Institute of Public Health. Some of the websites attacked by the young boy remained out of service for two days.

The youngster’s lawyer stated in the court that his client took this exercise as a challenge and was happy to receive videogames in return. The lawyer said that the attacks by no means were politically motivated. He further added that the boy has developed immense interest in computers and technology over the last few years.

On the other side of the coin, prosecutors expressed that the boy used a number of different methods to attack the government websites, including DDoS attacks. Having successfully hacked those websites, the boy defaced homepages and obtained sensitive information. The story does not end here as the boy had also been teaching others about hacking.