A Syrian hacker, who spent more than a decade as a fugitive for conducting cyberattacks on Western media outlets and U.S. government entities on behalf of former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, was sentenced to 42 months in prison on Wednesday.
Ahmad Umar Agha, also known as Th3Pr0, took part in a hacking conspiracy directed by members of Assad’s inner circle, including the commander of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate from 2011 to 2024, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Agha targeted some 47 media organizations, businesses, nongovernmental organizations and U.S. and allied government entities. The attacks aimed to suppress reporting on the Syrian government’s atrocities, spread propaganda, gather intelligence and undermine opposition to the regime, the Justice Department said.
In April 2013, Agha hacked the Twitter account of a prominent news agency to falsely report that then-U.S. President Barack Obama had been injured in explosions at the White House.
The post triggered a temporary flash crash that wiped $136 billion from the value of stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Agha also redirected visitors from a website hosting U.S. Marine Corps recruitment materials to a page showing Marines refusing their orders and fighting alongside the Syrian army. About 3,500 prospective visitors encountered the image during the attack, according to court filings.
He also tried twice to gain control of the White House’s social media accounts by stealing staff members’ emails. In one instance, he gained unauthorized access to an account but failed to convince other staff members to provide access to the White House’s social media pages.
The attacks imposed high financial costs on victims. One global nonprofit spent $250,000 on new network-monitoring products and incurred total losses of $480,000. That included costs of staff retraining and security upgrades. Another victim, a company providing online publishing services, lost about $35,000 a day for six months.
Agha’s co-conspirator, Firas Dardar, remains a fugitive. Prosecutors indicted the two in May 2018 after charging them in 2014.
“The attacks on our networks and institutions” are “an assault on the free press and our national and economic security,” stated John Eisenberg, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security.
He said that the sentence shows the government’s pursuit of state-sponsored hackers.
