A MA man rescued off the coast of Cuba by a Disney cruise ship has been arrested in connection with a computer attack on a Boston hospital.
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Gottesfeld, the Government alleges, “posted a YouTube video calling, in the name of Anonymous, for action against the local hospital in response to its treatment of Patient A”.
The hacking was meant to impair the ability of the hospital’s staff to treat a teenage patient, who was the focus of a well-publicized custody battle between the state and the patient’s parents.
The video’s narrator, whose voice was disguised by a computer program, stated, “will punish all those held accountable and will not relent until [Patient A] is free”.
The FBI say Gottesfield and Anonymous are responsible for shutting down the hospital’s servers.
On April 19, 2014, the hospital’s network was attacked with “hostile traffic”, which disrupted the network, took the website out of service and affected routine operations and research being done at the hospital, according to a press release from the Department of Justice. The affidavit says that Gottesfeld also helped orchestrate another attack.
The hospital is said to have lost more than $300,000 in responding to and mitigating the damage the attack caused.
He was discovered missing last week when Somerville police conducted a well-being check at his apartment.
Martin Gottesfield and his wife made a distress call from a boat, and he was pulled to safety by the nearby cruise ship.
Gottesfeld was arrested Wednesday morning in Miami.
Doctors at the hospital suspected the girl had been abused and placed her in a psychiatric ward – sparking a legal battle that the parents eventually won. She was in the custody of DCF for 15 months amid allegations that her parents were abusive toward her. A judge in June of that year ordered the state to return Pelletier to the custody of her parents.
Representatives for Children’s Hospital and Disney Cruise Line did not return calls seeking comment.
“Boston Children’s Hospital is grateful to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s office for investigating the cyber-attack launched on the hospital in April 2014 and for apprehending the hacker who led the attack and holding him accountable”, the hospital said in a statement Wednesday, adding that it has added safeguards in the wake of the attack.
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Gottesfeld faces charges in a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday in US District Court in Boston.
