Career
At the time of the so-called "50 Days of Lulz", Al-Bassam was 16 years old and living as a student in London. He is one of the affiliates of the online association of "hacktivists" known as Anonymous that targeted HBGary and HBGaryFederal in February 2011, having done much of the actual hacking work. Tflow also managed the LulzSecurity.com website during its short run in June 2011.
He is currently a technology volunteer with Privacy International in London. In February 2011, HBGaryFederal CEO Aaron Barr claimed he was going to expose the identities of hackers from Anonymous. Mustafa Al-Bassam, going by "Tflow" at the time, came across this information and shared it with co-conspirators Jake Davis, Hector Monsegur and others.
Chatlogs from the AnonOps IRC network demonstrate Tflow's integral role in the operation which hacked the servers of HBGaryFederal, defaced its homepage and leaked more than 70,000 private company emails, doing millions of dollars worth of damage. During the next several months, Tflow and fellow hacktivists Topiary, Sabu, Kayla, Pwnsauce and Palladium began searching for vulnerabilities in high level computer systems. During this time, Tflow and Topiary are credited with inventing the name "LulzSec" for the hacking group they were forming.
On July 20, 2011, it was announced on Fox News and other press outlets that London's Metropolitan Police had arrested a 16-year-old pupil in London who was alleged to have used the nickname "Tflow" in a series of high-profile attacks on fox.com, the FBI affiliate "Infragard", PBS and Sony. For legal reasons, his name could not be disclosed for nearly two more years. On April 9, 2013, Tflow's full name was revealed along with his picture on multiple news outlets throughout the Internet.
He pleaded guilty to computer misuse and received a 20-month suspended sentence with 500 hours of unpaid community service work. He is currently free and back on the Internet after a nearly two year Internet ban imposed by police.
