Former Reuters social media editor convicted of aiding L.A. Times hack

Matthew Keys, former deputy social media editor for the Reuters news agency, was convicted Wednesday for his role in a conspiracy to hack Los Angeles Times and Tribune Co. servers.

(At the time, Tribune Co. also owned the Chicago Tribune.)

Keys, 28, who also was a web producer for KTXL Fox 40 in Sacramento, a Tribune-owned television station, provided members of the hacker group Anonymous with login information for Tribune servers in 2010.

Minutes after his conviction was announced, Keys tweeted a profanity. His attorney’s law office, Jay Leiderman Law, tweeted that they plan to appeal.

Though Keys faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing, U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Lauren Horwood said prosecutors are “likely” to seek less than five years.

In their indictment, federal prosecutors alleged Keys conspired with Anonymous members to access the company’s servers “for the purpose of learning how to alter and damage it.” According to federal authorities, Keys provided a username and password for Tribune servers to hackers in an online chat room after he left KTXL in late October 2010.

A jury convicted Keys of one count of conspiracy to make changes to Tribune’s website and damage its computer systems, one count of transmitting malicious code and one count of attempting to transmit malicious code.

With the information from Keys, prosecutors say, a hacker accessed a news story on The Times’ website and changed a headline on a story about tax cuts to read: “Pressure builds in House to elect CHIPPY 1337.”

“[T]hat was such a buzz having my edit on the LA Times,” the hacker, using the screen name “sharpie,” wrote to Keys, according to the indictment.

“Nice,” Keys, using the screen name “AESCracked,” allegedly replied.

Keys said he was using a virtual private network “to cover my tracks,” according to the indictment.

Prosecutors wrote in the indictment that Tribune spent more than $5,000 responding to the attack and restoring its systems.

According to the indictment, Keys conspired with hackers via a chat room known as “internetfeds.”

Keys had written about gaining access to the chat room and communicating with hackers in a blog post for Reuters last year. Keys said the chat room was a “top secret” place where “elite hackers assembled.”

“If there was a political or economic reason behind their mayhem, so much the better. If not, they did it for kicks,” he wrote of the hackers’ motivations for their attacks.

He wrote in the post of the hack on The Times’ site, without acknowledging any personal involvement.

Keys was fired from Reuters shortly after federal prosecutors launched their case against him, though the company said he was let go for social media activities.

“Although this case has drawn attention because of Matthew Keys’ employment in the news media, this was simply a case about a disgruntled employee who used his technical skills to taunt and torment his former employer,” U.S. Atty. Benjamin Wagner said in a statement. “Although he did no lasting damage, Keys did interfere with the business of news organizations, and caused the Tribune Company to spend thousands of dollars protecting its servers. Those who use the Internet to carry out personal vendettas against former employers employers should know that there are consequences for such conduct.”

Keys now works as a managing editor for Grasswire, a news curation website.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 20 in Sacramento.