LONDON – Four hackers who pleaded guilty to a series of high-profile cyberattacks on computers in the United States and Britain, including those of the CIA and Sony Pictures, were sentenced Thursday to up to 32 months in prison.

The four men, all Britons, were members of the hacking group LulzSec, which flaunted its ability to break into the high-security computer networks of targets such as the U.S. Senate.

In 2011, the group claimed responsibility for hacking into the systems of PBS, media baron Rupert Murdoch’s News International and the Air Force, among other targets. The attacks caused websites to crash and resulted in the online publication of people’s credit card numbers and private email addresses.

Authorities say that the incidents inflicted serious harm on the companies’ and agencies’ reputations and financial damage of more than $30 million.

“The actions of these LulzSec hackers were cowardly and vindictive,” said Andrew Hadik of the Crown Prosecution Service in London. “They boasted of how clever they were with a complete disregard for the impact their actions had on real people’s lives.”

The four Brits were arrested between June and September 2011. One of them, Ryan Cleary, was carrying out an attack on the network of Britain’s Serious Organized Crime Agency when police arrested him, Scotland Yard said.

Ryan Ackroyd, 26; Mustafa Al-Bassam, 18; Jake Davis, 20; and Cleary, 21, all eventually pleaded guilty to hacking charges.

The longest prison sentence, 32 months, went to Cleary, who supplied the software to mount the attacks. Ackroyd, who scouted targets, received 30 months, and Davis, the group’s spokesman, 24 months. Al-Bassam, who was a minor at the time of his arrest, was given a 20-month suspended sentence.

The leader of LulzSec, Hector Monsegur, was arrested in the United States and became an informant for the FBI. He awaits sentencing in New York.

 

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