He could have destroyed the entire Internet, but in the end he was caught. Why do all the world’s hackers idolize Adam Madda?

The longer I work on this series of articles (still untitled), the more I realize that most of it appears suddenly to be teenagers, which is… in some ways, even pleasing. Why? Because the field of hacking is not about stealing sausage from the local “Pyaterochka”, it requires real talent in everything.

Today’s case is so special. Adam Madd did not use anything, no one particularly touched it, but he created software that for some time was feared by almost the entire world. But you most likely have not heard anything about him.

BRIEFLY

It all started with bullying in college

The hero of this material is himself. According to the classics, there are very few photographs.

I usually try to dig deeper into the childhood of the heroes of my materials, because a lot is laid down at an early age. child (David Pokora’s story: don’t let yourself be seduced), but the problem is that nothing is known about Adam Mudd at all.

The most important episode in the life of the future developer of the main hacker software is bullying. Adam grew up in a decent family, where the parents were not particularly interested in the child’s socialization. Reasons and problems – the guy wasn’t that much loved in college, often on the road, and at one point the grass was simply robbed, and a statement to the police did not bring any results.

In response to this, Mudd returned home just took and “put” 70 training sites in the area using a simple DDoS attack. True, it is the simplest only at first glance. In fact, Adam was testing his project, which later received the small name Titanium Stresser.

◦ Back to contents ◬

Titan brought in just a lot of money. But what is this anyway?

Here I break the usual structure a little and tell you what Titanium actually is. In the simplest terms, this is software that has learned to load servers and hosting until it completely crashes.

If you go deeper, it works like this: unlike the standard method of DDoS attack, no other computers were used. Everything is taken care of by a dedicated Linux server with a very wide output network channel, which allows you to save a huge number of standard requests victims on the server (or hosting), causing it to overload.

A map showing the geography of attacks carried out using the Titan.

Adam Madd is a very private person (therefore, his parents only found out about his activities when the police broke into the house) and never shared information about the development process of this miracle, but the Internet is full of information about how much it costs. Customers described Titanium in the same way or differently as one of the best stressors on the Internet.

By the way, there were not always attackers among the buyers; at the trial, Madd would later say that he was often contacted by a number of providers to simply check the functionality of the site under high load conditions with the help of Titanium. Adam had developed an ingenious marketing hook for everyone – the first attack could be carried out for free, although only for 60 seconds.

This is what the price list for the program looked like. The user selects the time during which requests will be sent and the attack will be carried out. In total, Adam Mudd earned more than £400,000 from Titan. That is approximately 30 million rubles

For premium users (for a very high price if you use it online) a lot of software has been prepared. For example, titanium turn set up spam email attacks, tracked infrastructure IP addresses to actual physical activity. server server, password brute force program and even double system load on servers. If you want to host any server, website or hosting, come to Adam and his Titanium Stresser.

Business created literally in the bedroom In the meantime, Adam Madd began to earn a stable income and led it politely, addressing all clients. All payments are made securely via crypto, every buyer gets 24/7 technical support, and those who pay a lot also get premium service.

Only, unlike other heroes of my series, Adam Mudd never shined. No lifestyle improvements, exorbitant expenses and costs. He simply saved all the money; he was pleased by the fact that he had now become an important and innovative figure for a number of people. You still remember that he was poisoned?

◦ Back to contents ◬

The empire was destroyed by a schoolboy who was offended by Sony

I sometimes catch myself thinking that almost all the troubles in the world are, in one way or another, due to schoolchildren, from whom parents do not fend off their hands with a long ruler. Therefore, in my house there are 4 such lines, and two of them are inherited.

The personality of the creator of “killer sites,” as well as the tool itself, is largely stable. unnoticed by the authorities for a very long time. No, the world knows that every website can be taken down sooner or later, but then everything is taken into account that this is a regular DDoS attack, and not some kind of software at the moment.

The guy on the right was imprisoned for 3 years and was accused of more than 50 thousand episodes of computer crimes. He also turned Adam over to Mudd.

However, there was such a large hacker group of fighters against the corporation called Lizard Squad, perhaps we will talk about it sometime later. And so, in fact, the “lizards” also bought a subscription to Titanium, with the help of which they repeatedly “dropped” the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services. And in general, the biography of the group (as well as the group) is very rich.

Only there are plenty of their own smart people there too. A teenager in the world once found himself somewhere accidentally praising the hacker remarks addressed to the above. services, which aroused the interest of journalists, as well as schoolchildren, selling it turned out to be easy. He also turned in some of his accomplices, and just said that they used a certain program that allows you to load services before they are completely turned off.

The subsequent materials of the case are closed, but there is a fact: soon after the guy was imprisoned, the police came to Adam Mudd’s house, and he was taken into custody.

◦ Back to contents ◬

At the final hearing, the judge sadly read out the verdict

The words in the subtitle are never my invention. Almost all the British media wrote that at the trial literally everyone looked with bitterness at Adam Madda and the judge himself (from the Topolsky family) When the verdict was read out, my voice trembled.

“The case of Adam Mudd is unfortunate because this young man is obviously very gifted, but he chose to trade his talent for personal gain at the expense of other people’s suffering. We just want to make it clear that the real sentence for the imperfect is not our personal whim, the desire to teach young people appears for their actions. It is important that other equally gifted students understand this before they embark on the path of crime. “Parents, if your kids won’t leave your room, at least ask what they’re doing on the Internet,” an excerpt from a local police press release.

In general, nominal software is, if it does not seriously comply with the law, then exactly on its border. After all, at a minimum, it can and should be used for the right purposes. But what is decisively confirmed is that Mudd nevertheless provides him with a package of services that are used exclusively in Cybercrime, as a result of incidents, naturally, the fact of money laundering was discovered, which the law is already strictly observing.

The result of the story was 2 years in prison. They could have given more, but they took into account age and, most importantly, the diagnosis. I haven’t mentioned it anywhere before, but Adam has Asperger’s syndrome. Mudd was sincerely advised to work in the digital security field after his prison sentence, where he had a great future. However, the story ends with information about the landing. Adam Madd has gone into the shadows… Although he is technologically advanced, he is always there and constant.

I am voicing this thought to you. Have a good day!

◦ Back to contents ◬