A Chinese University undergraduate who launched more than 6,000 attacks on Shanghai Commercial Bank’s website in 16 seconds in response to hacker group Anonymous Asia’s appeals during the Occupy protests in 2014 was sentenced to a 15-month probation order. Fanling Court also on Monday confiscated a Mac computer belonging to Chu Tsun-wai, 20, following his conviction after trial on one count of criminal damage. Magistrate Raymond Wong Kwok-fai said the offence was serious but sided with the probation officer in granting the order because he found the attacks caused little impact to the bank’s website and did not produce a chain reaction. Hackers have their sights on Hong Kong, cyber security experts warn He said a probation order with counselling would help remind Chu to abide by the law. “But if you breach that order, you will be sentenced again and the court may impose a custodial sentence,” Wong added. The court previously heard the offence took place on October 12, after Anonymous Asia called for an attack against Hong Kong organisations . Change your LinkedIn password: social network says hacker stole 117 million users’ credentials Chu admitted to police under caution that he subsequently conducted an online search on how to carry out distributed denial of service attacks. DDoS attacks crowd a targeted server and prevent it from receiving normal users’ requests to browse a site. Letters submitted in Chu’s mitigation suggested he was a high performing student who outclassed even PhD candidates in a post-graduate course. Defence counsel Freddy Woon Jee-quan added his client did not personally benefit from the attacks and asked for a lenient sentence to offer the first-time offender rehabilitation. Woon also revealed that Chu may now face disciplinary hearings from his university’s internal committee on student discipline. “He should be given another chance to start afresh.”