The hacker's defenders believe that the estimates are too high

Nov 22, 2012 10:32 GMT  ·  By

Law enforcement representatives claim that the damage caused by the hacker ItsKahuna when he breached the sites of the Salt Lake Police and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association amounts to around $180,000 (€140,000).

According to Desert News, the Utah Chiefs of Police Association says it has lost $147,000 (€114,000) and Salt Lake police allegedly lost $32,797 (€24,000) as a result of the attacks.

However, the suspect’s attorneys argue that the estimates might not be correct, so they’ve requested further details about loss claims such as “reputation control,” “telephone support,” “online support,” and “security audit.”

Furthermore, the defense is interested in learning about the security measures set in place to prevent such attacks. They want to find out if the operating system and other applications were fully patched, if security systems were in place, if data was properly encrypted, and if security was tested by utilizing public tools.

As experts highlight, if the proper security mechanisms were missing and the hacker gained access easily to their system, the loss estimates might be incorrect because the victims share part of the blame for the intrusion.

ItsKahuna, who is believed to be John Anthony Borell, hacked into the websites back in January as part of a hacktivist operation called #OpPiggyBank, which targeted law enforcement organizations.