Ahmad Umar Agha, a Syrian Electronic Army hacker known as "Th3Pr0," has been sentenced to 42 months in prison for his role in a hacking conspiracy targeting Western news outlets, businesses, and government bodies in support of Bashar al-Assad's regime. He is best known for hijacking the Associated Press's Twitter account in 2013 to post a false report about an explosion at the White House, briefly wiping $136 billion off the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average — an outcome Agha later described as intentional and a "big victory." In total, Agha hacked approximately 47 organisations, and the conspiracy was alleged by the U.S. Justice Department to have been organised and led by senior figures within Assad's government.
