An Akron man has been arrested and charged with a cyber attack last year that shut down two of the city’s main government websites.
Thirty-two-year-old James Robinson is charged with causing a “distributed denial of service” attack on the city’s website, akronohio.gov, as well as the Akron Police website, akroncops.org, on Aug. 1 of last year. The attacks essentially consisted of flooding the servers with traffic, causing them to shut down.
The FBI says Robinson was found when his phone number was linked to a Twitter account that took credit for the attacks, posting messages such as, “It’s time we teach the law a lesson” and “Akron PD abuses the law.” The FBI also says it identified Robinson’s internet connection as the source of the attacks. Since then, the same Twitter account has been used to take credit for several other attacks, including one on the Ohio Department of Public Safety website.
According to an FBI affidavit, Robinson admitted to many of the attacks after his residence was searched on Wednesday.
