CyberWarrior Skype Attack at Zimmerman Trial

Some cyberwarrior attacks against  the state will be more successful than others, some will be more sophisticated than others, some will make more sense than others and some will just remind the state that cyberwarriors can reach into all corners of state operations.

Today, a relatively simple, though effective, attack occurred at a state courtroom. The Smoking Gun has the details:

As a witness in the George Zimmerman murder trial testified this morning via Skype, pranksters watching the case bombarded the man’s account with calls, forcing the judge to interrupt the man’s testimony.

As seen in the below video, Scott Pleasants, a criminal justice professor at Seminole State College, was testifying about Zimmerman taking a criminal investigation course when the Skype meltdown occurred.

Pleasants, who was in Colorado, was about two minutes into his testimony when a steady barrage of incoming call boxes began popping up on the Skype screen. Each call was accompanied by a loud “pinging” sound.

“I gotta tell you, there’s now a really good chance that we’re being toyed with,” remarked Zimmerman lawyer Mark O’Mara (who can be seen alongside prosecutor Richard Mantei in the Skype window’s bottom right corner).

At one point, four separate incoming call boxes were tiled on the screen, covering Pleasants from view. As a giggling Pleasants tried desperately to minimize the boxes, Judge Debra Nelson ordered lawyers to “hang up the phone.” She added, “I don’t want those up on the screen.”

Pleasants eventually resumed his testimony via a cell phone connection.