A California man was convicted of launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against telescope retailer Astronomics and the online astronomy forum the company runs called Cloudy Nights.

David Chesley Goodyear, of El Segundo, Calif., was found guilty by a jury last week of hitting both the Norman, Okla.-based retailer and forum in August 2016, reported Robert J. Troester, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma. Troester presented evidence to the jury that Goodyear had belonged to the Cloudy Nights forum, but twice had been blocked from the site for violating its terms of service, which included sending threats to users, administrators, and moderators.

Goodyear used two aliases to place posts on Cloudy Nights on August 9 and 13, 2016. In these posts he threatened to “talk with his contacts and hit the forum and Astronomics with a DoS attack, Troester said.

“Evidence further showed that DDoS attacks against Astronomics and Cloudy Nights commenced that night and continued intermittently until the end of August 2016, when Goodyear was interviewed by law enforcement and admitted he was responsible for the attacks,” Troester said.

Goodyear faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Source: https://www.scmagazine.com/california-man-convicted-of-ddos-attack-against-telescope-retailer/article/745248/