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A local 19-year-old boy has risen to fame lately. No, he was not another Instagram celebrity or an actor in one of the countless soap operas playing on tv. He was one of the polices recent arrestees.
Sultan Haikal was arrested on Mar. 30 at his parents house in South Tangerang, Banten by the National Polices cyber crime division for hacking thousands of websites. If proven guilty on trial, he could be charged with Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law on cyber crime.
But his crime isnt what the public has their eyes fixated upon. People are more interested in the person. How come an untrained 19-year-old boy from South Tangerang hack websites of some of the most influential institutes in Indonesia?
In case youre also intrigued by this person, we have some facts about him that you might want to know.
Sultan Haikal. Photo: Facebook
1. Haikal is a high school dropout.
Unlike most hackers, Haikal never had the chance to formally study coding or technology in school. He didnt even finish high school. He said he learned how to hack from the internet. His specialty is using defacement technique that can change a sites visual appearance.
Haikal did not work alone. He has three accomplices, MKU (19), AI (20) and NTM (27) all are high school graduates who learned their skills from the internet.
2. Haikal has broken into thousands of websites.
According to the police, Haikal has hacked up to 4,600 sites including sites belonging to the National Police, the central government and several local governments, tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, Garuda Indonesia, an online ojek company and travel company tiket.com.
Money wasnt his only reason to hack those sites. Like many teenagers, Haikal loves to show off and bragging about his accomplishment in breaching those sites was his favorite pastime. He often posted his work on a Facebook group called Gantengers Crew.
3. His hacking activities has resulted in billions of rupiah loss.
Travel company tiket.com lost Rp 4 billion when Haikal hacked their website, took and sold their ticketing allotments to Citilink Indonesia. Meanwhile, Citilink suffered a Rp 1.9 billion loss when a number of people who bought the tickets from the hackers cancelled their purchase and asked for refund.
Haikal was estimated to earn up to Rp 4.1 billion from this crime alone. He spent the money to pay for his lavish lifestyle and a Ducati bike.
(brl/red)
