PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 An Arizona man pleaded guilty Monday to a hacking charge in a cyberattack two years ago that authorities said interrupted communications equipment for emergency workers in Madison, Wisconsin.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Randall Charles Tucker, 22, of Apache Junction pleaded guilty to intentionally damaging protected computers in the March 2015 attack in Madison. His plea deal calls for a sentence of up to four years in prison.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also was charged with hacking into municipal computer systems two years ago in two Phoenix suburbs, Chandler and Mesa, and attacking the Washington, D.C.-based News2Share site in December 2014. The charges stemming from the attacks in Arizona and on the news site were dropped as part of the plea deal.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tucker acknowledged in court that he launched the Madison attack from his home in Arizona. The attack flooded a firewall router with traffic, causing it to fail.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities said it temporarily disabled access to the city’s website and caused internet-connected communication equipment used by emergency workers to become inaccessible or degraded. The automatic dispatching system for emergency workers was crippled, and other emergency workers experienced problems in connecting to a 911 center.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tucker later bragged about the attack on social media under his nickname “Bitcoin Baron.”\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Magistrate Judge Bridget Bade asked Tucker if his statements in court about the Madison attack were true.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Yes, your honor,” he answered.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attack came three days after a white Madison police officer fatally shot Tony Robinson, a 19-year-old biracial man, during an altercation in an apartment building stairwell.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shooting put the police department under intense scrutiny and sparked days of protests. The officer was eventually cleared of criminal wrongdoing. The indictment against Tucker doesn’t mention the shooting.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Less than a week after the Madison hack, authorities say Tucker launched an attack on city websites in Mesa and Chandler that temporarily made them inaccessible to users.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also was accused of attacking the Washington, D.C.-based News2Share site in late 2014 after it failed to run a video he had provided. The video’s contents weren’t publicly revealed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Randall Charles Tucker also was charged with hacking into municipal computer systems two years ago in two Phoenix suburbs, Chandler and Mesa, and attacking the Washington, D.C.-based News2Share site in December 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":63339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":29,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"8":{"categories":[],"primary_category":""}}},"categories":[106,29,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2464],"class_list":["post-21639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"3RKAP6TRF5HY3F55QSKHY25SGQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2017\/04\/18\/arizona-man-pleads-guilty-in-cyberattack-on-emergency-systems\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n