Ahmad Umar Agha, also known as "Th3Pr0," has been sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for his involvement in a hacking conspiracy against Western news sites. Members sent phishing emails to steal employees' passwords, then used those passwords to deface websites, redirect web traffic, and hijack social media accounts, as reported by a 2014 FBI affidavit.
On April 23, 2013, the group took over the Associated Press's Twitter account and posted a false report that President Barack Obama had been injured in two explosions at the White House. Agha later revealed to Business Insider that the objective of the hack was to cause a significant drop in the Dow, describing it as a "big victory for us." Agha was initially charged in June 2014 with a complaint that remained undisclosed until March 2016.
Three earlier public documents in the case do not describe Syrian officials organizing or leading the group: the 2014 FBI affidavit, the Justice Department's March 2016 announcement of charges, and its May 2018 indictment. An early study of the group, published by the OpenNet Initiative, found no credible evidence linking the attackers to the Syrian government beyond the implied support any such group would need to operate on Syrian networks.
In total, Agha compromised 47 Western media outlets, businesses, non-profit groups, and U.S.
