In a shocking incident, a British hacker carried out a out a cyber attack that knocked out the entire telecommunications network in the South African country of Liberia.
Liberia is a small country in West Africa that has a total land area of 111,369 km². In 2015, Daniel Kaye executed a cyber attack on Lonestar, a Liberian phone operator company. The attack was so acute that it led to Liberia's entire communications network failing in the next year.
According to a report in CNN, the 30-year-old hacker was hired by Lonestar's rival company Cellcom and cost the former $600,000 in remedial action.
Kaye admitted to carrying out the crime in October 2015 using botnets - a series of computers linked together to carry out cyber attacks. He was also responsible for carrying out cyber attacks on Germany-based Deutsche Telekom after he was extradited there following his arrest in 2017.
Mike Hulett, Head of Operations of Britain's National Crime Agency's Cyber Crime Unit said that the attack caused a significant damage to a lot of related companies in Liberia and abroad, demonstrating the border-less threat of cyber attacks.
Kaye pleaded guilty to the crimes on Friday and has been sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
