US: Syrian Hacker Who Targeted Western Media and Government Sentenced to 42 Months

A federal court in the state of Virginia in the United States sentenced Ahmad Umar Agha, a Syrian hacker who operated on behalf of Bashar Assad's regime, to 42 months in prison, news outlets Walla and JNS reported.

According to JNS, Agha targeted 47 media outlets, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and government entities, including a cyberattack that briefly erased $136 billion from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Walla noted that the European news agency Europa Press previously linked Agha to the breach of the IDF spokesperson's Twitter account and the dissemination of a false alert regarding a nuclear leak in Dimona, though the US Department of Justice announcement did not mention the Israeli incident.