Illinois Man Convicted of Federal Criminal Charges for Operating Subscription-Based Computer Attack Platforms | USAO-CDCA

          LOS ANGELES – An Illinois man was found guilty today by a federal jury for running websites that allowed paying users to launch powerful distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks that flood targeted computers with information and prevent them from being able to access the internet.

          Matthew Gatrel, 32, of St. Charles, Illinois, was found guilty of three felonies: one count of conspiracy to commit unauthorized impairment of a protected computer, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and one count of unauthorized impairment of a protected computer.

          According to evidence presented at his nine-day trial, Gatrel owned and operated two DDoS facilitation websites: DownThem.org and AmpNode.com. DownThem sold…