Finnish Teen Hacker Skips Jail In Spite Of 50,700 Counts Of Cybercrime

Seventeen-year-old Lizard Squad member Julius "zeekill" Kivimaki gets off easy with a 2-year suspended sentence. In short, the Finnish teen hacker will NOT go to jail.

Finland’s justice system gave Kivimaki what was merely a proverbial “slap on the wrist” with just 2 years of monitored online activity, as well as the confiscation of his PC. He was also ordered to surrender around €6,588 (£4,725, $7,295) of the loot he obtained through his crimes.

These were the relatively light consequences for the 50,700 counts of cybercrime that Kivimaki alone perpetrated. These activities affected over 50,000 computer servers, linked to companies such as MongoHQ, and even Ivy League universities such as Harvard and MIT. His crimes have cost these companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Kivimaki also launched a Bitcoin money laundering scheme, which allowed him to take a trip to Mexico.

Blair Strater, an individual who bore the brunt of some of Kivimaki’s mischievous online pranks, expressed how he “lost complete faith in the justice system.” He reflects, with regret, that Kivimaki “will never be made to pay for his crimes.”

Blair Strater and his family were the targets of a series of bullying efforts from Kivimaki. One incident included a phone call to the Oswego Police Department in Illinois, alleging that Blair Strater’s mother, Amy Strater, had been killed. The Oswego Police Department reportedly dragged the whole family out of bed at 3AM just to take Amy Strater’s blood pressure and file it as documentation. In another incident, an email with the subject line “I Will Shoot Up Your School” was sent to the Southbury Elementary School from Amy Strater’s email account.

Just this April 2015, Kivimaki orchestrated an international prank wherein thousands of callers from all over the world reached Strater’s home phone, in a bid to win a Tesla. The calls came from as far as South Africa. These and other similar pranks, both harmless and downright malevolent, were deployed against Blair Strater and his family.

Kivimaki’s motives for his targeted onslaught against the Strater family were unclear, though Paul Strater admitted that his 20-year-old son, Blair is a “white hat” hacker.

White hat hackers report cybersecurity loopholes to the corporations who own the systems and networks, as well as to security companies such as Symantec or Kaspersky. Some white hackers even work closely with government agencies such as the United States Air Force. How Blair Strater made an enemy out of Julius Kivimaki has not been explained, however.

“Zeekill” Kivimaki got into the trade of hacking at the age of 15. Given his relatively early start into criminal activities, it may be quite beneficial for victims if crimes like his were classified as criminal activities of adults.

Blair Strater is described to be “absolutely disgusted” with the legal decision on the case. And gathering from his statement, more than a little disheartened.

The steady stream of charge-on-delivery flowers and pizza, remote power and cable disconnections, not to mention VoIP calls to Oswego police, and 3AM blood pressure recordings were a reality for the Strater family for a while now.