The US Justice Department said a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced Ahmad Umar Agha (also known as Th3Pr0) to 42 months in prison on Oct 29. According to DOJ, the conspiracy was organized and led by members of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's inner circle, including the commander of Syria's General Intelligence Directorate, and ran from as early as Aug 24, 2011 to Jan 31, 2014.

• Scope: DOJ says Agha hacked about 47 Western media entities, businesses, NGOs and US and allied government entities to spread the regime's propaganda, intimidate opponents and collect intelligence.
• Market impact: one of the intrusions caused a flash crash that temporarily wiped about $136 billion off the value of Dow Jones stocks (the 2013 hijack of the Associated Press Twitter account, per The Record).
• Military targeting: the group also tried to get US service members to refuse orders.
• Co-conspirator: Firas Dardar, indicted with Agha in May 2018 after a 2014 complaint, remains a fugitive.

The FBI noted Agha had spent more than a decade as a fugitive before the sentence.