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MONTPELLIER

British student killed crossing road in France

A British university student was killed in the southern city of Montpellier over the weekend, after attempting to cross a motorway with a group of friends on a night out.

Published: 30 September 2013 09:58 CEST
British student killed crossing road in France
A British university student was killed in the southern city of Montpellier over the weekend, after attempting to cross a motorway. File photo: Corentin Bechade

A night out ended in tragedy for a group of friends in Montpellier over the weekend, when a British man died after being struck by a car while crossing a motorway in the southern city, according to French media.

The 22-year-old British student and six of his friends had been on their way to a nightclub in nearby Lattes in the early hours of Saturday morning, according to local daily La Depeche.

Believing they were heading towards the Route de Palavas, the group of friends had in fact stumbled upon the A9 motorway, but decided to venture across on foot, anyway.

Tragically, a motorist travelling in the direction of Nîmes collided with two of the group, killing one and injuring another at around 1.25 am, according to TF1 television.

“The collision happened in the central lane of the motorway,” a police source told La Depeche. “[The driver] couldn’t avoid them.”

The 29-year-old motorist has been taken into custody on suspicion of involuntary homicide and injury.

The identity of the British man has not yet revealed, and a representative from the British embassy was not available for comment at time of writing.

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HACKING

Briton faces court over Deutsche Telekom cyber attack that hit 1 million German homes

A British man admitted in a Cologne court on Friday to staging a large-scale cyber attack on Deutsche Telekom last year, saying he was acting for a Liberian client.

Published: 21 July 2017 15:41 CEST
Briton faces court over Deutsche Telekom cyber attack that hit 1 million German homes
The 29-year-old Brit in court on Friday. Photo: DPA

The 29-year-old described as “the worst mistake of my life” the attack that knocked more than a million German households offline in November and added his motivation was money.

The defendant, who was not named, was arrested in February at London's Luton airport on a European arrest warrant for attempted computer sabotage and extradited to Germany.

German police said the goal was to infect users' computers with a “botnet” – a network of web-connected machines that can be manipulated with malware and used to attack other online targets.

The Briton told the court he was paid $10,000 (about €8,500) by a Liberian telecom company which wanted to use the botnet to damage a rival company.

He said he had taught himself IT skills and attended a few programming courses, testifying with the help of a translator.

The verdict was expected on Friday, July 28th. If found guilty, he faces up to ten years' jail in Germany.

Around a million of Deutsche Telekom's 20 million customers were unable to connect to its network for several hours last November.

The attack, which the company said caused about €2 million of damage, ended when it advised customers to disconnect their routers and restart them after a software update.

The large-scale strike fuelled concerns over cyber security in Germany and officials have warned that more online assaults are possible ahead of a general election in September.

The country has already been the victim of repeated hacking attacks in recent years.

In 2015, hackers targeted Germany's lower house of parliament in an attack that security services have since blamed on Russia.

Germany has also anxiously eyed the impact of leaked documents obtained by hackers during last year's US presidential campaign.

SEE ALSO: Merkel says Germans must learn to live with Russian cyberwar