A British student from York who breached Facebook security almost a year ago has just received a sentence of 8 months in the slammer for “the most extensive and flagrant incidence of social media hacking” to be brought before the courts.
The court heard how Glenn Mangham “unlawfully accessed and hacked into the social media website Facebook and its computers in April to May last year from his bedroom in Yorkshire” and used skills taught to him as a Software Development student to act “with determination, undoubted ingenuity and it was sophisticated, it was calculating”. His actions cost Facebook £126,400 in investigating and dealing with the crime – However the court did recognise Mangham’s “high moral stance” and it was said that in the past Yahoo had even recognised him for identifying flaws in their own system.
Mangham was able to download and store “intellectual property” from the social network and despite deleting any trace of his entry Facebook security was still able to follow up his actions during a system check. The judge overseeing the case, Judge Alistair McCreath, addressed the severity of Mangham’s actions saying “You accessed the very heart of the system of an international business of massive size, so this was not just fiddling about in the business records of some tiny business of no great importance.”
Facebook was pleased with the cooperation of the British police force and the Crown Prosecution and are happy with the outcome, saying “We take any attempt to gain unauthorised access to our network very seriously, and we work closely with law enforcement authorities to ensure that offenders are brought to justice.”
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