Three years in prison were required against a French player and hacker, who is allegedly guilty of computer attacks, threats and having invented a hostage-taking at Ubisoft.
The defendant suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and an absolute intolerance to frustration.
Hacking, hoaxes, threats… a complicated file
Yanni O., known as Y4nn0XX, was yesterday in the 12e chamber of the Paris Criminal Court to be tried for attempted extortion, death threat and fraud. Just 22 years old, he is accused in particular of having, between 2020 and 2022, made the police believe that a hostage-taking was in progress on the side of Ubisoft Montreal in 2020 (which called “swatting”). In addition, he hacked the National Center for Distance Education (CNED) in 2021 and threatened the company Fuze III, which administers the multiplayer servers of Minecraft.
In the case of Ubisoft, the threat was taken very seriously by the Quebec police, who had been mobilized for several hours to evacuate 400 people and a crèche. As for the CNED, it is the famous attack to which Jean-Michel Blanquer, then Minister of National Education, had attributed a foreign origin. After 8 hours of hearing, the public prosecutor requested 3 years of imprisonment, two of which accompanied by a suspended probation. The deliberation has been set for July 3.
Varied motivations and an unstable personality
The prize list of the alleged perpetrator of the facts provoked various questions on the side of justice, and the hearing obviously did not allow the veil to be lifted on the personality of the defendant. The civil parties refer to a ” little fish “, but the psychiatric experts interviewed reported a paranoid schizophrenia which would reduce the responsibility of Yanni O. If he acted in this way with Ubisoft, it would be out of revenge following several banishments for cheating on Rainbow Six Siege. His participation in the hacking of the CNED would have been motivated only by the idea ” create buzz and gain followers on Twitter “.
Between two laughs presented as nervous, Yanni O. said that he did not remember having trapped the police in Montreal, then mentioned an accomplice that the publisher’s lawyer presented as a ” imaginary double “. He then reconsidered his declarations and indicated that he was not aware of the gravity of the facts, having in mind the idea of the game. He however denied being at the origin of the DDoS attack against Fuze III, but admitted to having threatened an employee, posted terrorist messages and being the author of a song published on YouTube in which he listed his reproaches against the company.
Sources: South West, BFM TV
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