Guilty plea for hacker who took Comcast off Web

IDG News Service - A member of a telephone hacking group known as Kryogeniks has pleaded guilty to taking Comcast Corp.'s Web site offline in May 2008.

Christopher Allen Lewis pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to intentionally damage a protected computer system, according to local reports out of Philadelphia, where the case is being tried. That charge could lead to a five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

Lewis, who used the hacker name EBK, is one of three men charged with a hacking incident that disrupted Comcast's Web page for two days. He was charged in November, along with alleged co-conspirators James Robert Black, and Michael Paul Nebel. Nebel has pleaded not guilty, but Black is expected to plead guilty next week according to a report.

All of the men were part of a "phone phreaking group called 'Kryogeniks,'" according to Lewis's plea memorandum.

According to the memorandum, Lewis used social-engineering techniques to get critical information over the phone. He called a Comcast employee at his Clifton Heights, Pa., home on May 27 to see if he could get information on Comcast's Fearnet.com Web site, which offers on-demand horror movies and clips.

Using the phone, Lewis got enough information to gain access to Comcast's Domain Name System account, operated by Network Solutions LLC.

After the hackers had control of the domain, Lewis called a Comcast employee at home to ask if the Comcast domains were working properly. In an interview with Wired News, conducted shortly after the incident, Lewis said that he had contacted Comcast's technical contact to let him know what they'd done.

When the Comcast employee didn't believe their claims, the hackers decided to redirect the Web site, Wired reported.

Lewis and his accomplices then changed the IP address associated with Comcast.net, directing it to another site that announced that Kryogeniks had hacked Comcast.

Comcast was knocked offline for "at least 90 minutes," the plea agreement states. Visitors to the site were greeted with the message: "KRYOGENIKS Defiant and EBB RoXed COMCAST sHouTz to VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven."

At the time, Comcast.net was getting about 5 million visitors per day.