Washington, December 14, 2016: An Indian-origin computer science student of 26-year-old has been charged with initiating a number of cyber-attacks on a chat site in the US.

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United States Attorney Brian J Stretch and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge John F Bennett said, "Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma has been indicted for transmitting a programme, information, code, or command causing damage to a protected computer."

The indictment accuses the computer science student of initiating a number of attacks on a local provider of online chat services.

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According to the indictment, "Between November 6, 2014 and January 20, 2015, Sharma, used a "distributed denial of service (DDoS) tool to compromise the computers of a San Francisco-based company that provides online chat services to third party web sites."

On December 9, Sharma was arrested. US Attorney's Office, Northern District of California said in a statement that he was released on a USD 100,000 bond.

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Sharma will face a sentence of ten years in prison, maximum and three years of supervised release, and/or a fine, if he is convicted.

prepared by NewsGram team with PTI inputs