Hacker admits attacking Comcast's Web services

A high-school dropout admitted yesterday in federal court that he participated in the hijacking of Comcast's Internet home page in May 2008.

Christopher Allen Lewis, 20, of Newark, Del., who pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to intentionally damage a protected computer system, was a member of the hacker group Kryogeniks.

When Comcast's Internet customers tried to connect to their e-mails or voice mails on May 28-29, 2008, they were redirected to a page boasting of the attack.

The feds said the hijacking took down Comcast's home page for at least 90 minutes, affected five million users and cost the company $128,500 to restore the system. When the hackers were charged in November, a spokesman said the company had taken steps to prevent future hacking of its system.

Lewis, who showed up for the plea hearing wearing jeans, sneakers and a hoodie, could face 30 to 37 months in prison under preliminary advisory guidelines. U.S. District Judge Robert F. Kelly set sentencing for May 21.

The government's plea memo said Lewis and co-defendants James R. Black and Michael Paul Nebel gained control of Comcast's Web site after Lewis called a Comcast employee at his home in Clifton Heights on May 27, 2008, inquiring about a company-owned Web site, fearnet.com.

The plea memo said Lewis made other phone calls and obtained information that allowed Black and Nebel to access an account that Comcast maintained with its domain registrar.

This enabled the hackers to gain access to all domain-name information for www.comcast.net and eventually redirect Internet users when they visited www. comcast.net, the court filing said.

The plea memo said the defendants accessed a private computer network based in Sweden to hide the location of the computer Nebel allegedly used to command the Comcast hijack.

Lewis also called the Comcast employee in Clifton Heights again on May 28, 2008, to ask him if Comcast's Web site was working properly, the plea memo said.

Black, 20, of Tumwater, Wash., is expected to plead guilty next week in federal district court in Tacoma, court documents said.

Nebel, 27, of Kalamazoo, Mich., has pleaded not guilty in the case.