Glenn Mangham
Twenty-six year-old British software development student Glenn Mangham has been sentenced to eight months of jail time for hacking into Facebook servers several occasionslast year.
The sentence marks an astonishing conclusion to a expensive joint investigation by Facebook, the FBI, and Scotland Yard.
Between April 27 and May 9 of 2011, Mangham repeatedly hacked into different Facebook servers. Mangham was arrested in June 2011 and officially charged in August with 5 counts of computer hacking. The youngster from York later admitted his guilt, but said his actions had been intended to help Facebook enhance security.
The social network has maintained that members’ personal data was not comprised in the course of the breaches. Ruling Judge Alistair McCreath determined, nevertheless, that Mangham’s actions could have been “utterly disastrous” for Facebook.
“You and other individuals who are tempted to act as you did really must recognize how significant this is,” McCreath told Mangham, Reuters reported.
When reached for comment, Facebook mentioned that it is pleased with the outcome of the trial.
“We applaud the efforts of the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service in this case, which did not involve any compromise of personal user information,” a spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We take any attempt to gain unauthorized access to our network quite seriously, and we work closely with law enforcement authorities to guarantee that offenders are brought to justice.”
The case was mentioned to be one of the initial of its kind in Britain.
Photo credit: Nicholas Razzell/Telegraph
Filed under: security, social, VentureBeat 
