A 26 year old student from York who hacked into Facebook has been sentenced to eight months in prison, following what a court called the most serious social media hacking case in the UK to date.
Glenn Mangham, who studied software development, had stolen internal data from one of Facebook’s employees “to point out vulnerabilities” in April last year.
After the FBI figured out the hacker was in the UK, the case was referred to the Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), which raided Mangham’s York home in June 2011.
In his defence, Mangham said that he was just trying to show how vulnerable Facebook’s internal systems are and that he was planning to compile a report of security issues and send them to the company.
Mangham claimed that he had previously shown the search engine Yahoo how it could improve its security, and said the company rewarded him for his efforts. His defence called him an “ethical hacker” who was trying to help Facebook against real security threats and it was also pointed out Mangham had never been in trouble with the law before.
The judge concluded that the hacker did not pass on any of the information to third parties and he did not benefit financially from the hack. The stolen information did not include any user data, just Facebook’s internal data and corporate communications. Even so, the court sentenced Mangham to serve four consecutive terms in prison, three for hacking and one for causing or risking damage to the attacked systems.
The student was also given a serious crime prevention order that restricts his access to the Internet and has his computer equipment confiscated.
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this is so so wrong
Completely ridiculous. This is not sensible justice.
Can't the government and the legal system see that all they are going to do is create a schism in society, where clever tech people will go underground? This only makes people angry when they see such injustice. As Jim points out, you don't get banged up for crimes with a far greater social consequence!
Utter nonsense.
This is utterly crazy.What did the poor guy do wrong? I am appalled by the so called justice system acting in such a harsh manner.
i can not believe the injustice here...
how absolutely ridiculous,these people should be given a job with the comanies they hack,what a waste of talent lockking him up.
A bank CEO fundamentally allows billions to be lost due to criminal lack of risk assessment. Money which later will have to be paid with public taxes. Well gets the millions bonus payment reduced. Not even investigated. A student hacks a site with no monetary loss, 4 consecutive terms in prison... yeah justice.
So I go hack any site. Get caught. Tell everyone Im trying to help them and then everyone feels sorry for me?
Maybe ths should be Anons defense.
Just shows what a stupid world we live in!!!
I can only think that because the case was referred by the FBI that the felt he needed to show an example instead of being proud of a fellow Brit showing up the yanks and accepting his explanation of sending a report. The sentence completely out weighs the crime and what gain?
at the most a 10 day suspended sentence but he rocked the establishment and hes not a banker so a member of the establishment
This man should have been sent to prison for 3 years, and served two. All of us need to uphold internet-security. None of us can afford to let 'hackers' go free or admire them in any way. The FBI are the heroes here, and it's good the British Courts support them with tough sentencing.
my house was burgled twice by my next door neighbour. He was given a community service order and told to pay compensation. Because he is unemployed, compensation will not be forthcoming. Yet this hacker is locked up? Totally unjust!!!!!
messed up. We should be grabbing that kid and hiring him for the security services. We lag behind china and russia notoriously in the hacking scene. A guy like that is a gift that shouldn't be squandered in prison.
Emigrate to China or Russia then if you think we lag behind so much!
How ridiculous. This poor chap is going to have a crime registered against him that he doesn't even deserve. They have proven that he "did not benefit financially from the hack" so why is he being slammed up in jail? All he has done is highlight an obviously weak system, and they should be head-hunting or offering him future employment so that he c can strengthen their systems - as he has highlighted where the vulnerabilities lie. He is being punished for a quality that could be put to such positive use. What's so awful about this, is that this is going to be on his future records, when it comes to applying for employment. He sounds a very intelligent and skilled individual, yet they have chosen to lock him away to teach him a lesson. How pathetic!
He was fired by his curiosity and intelligence and has been punished for it! There are so many people out there who can't be bothered to learn or apply knowledge autonomously, or because they purely find it fascinating, and yet he is being in effect told, that his intelligence counts for nothing...this is so typical of the British outlook...knock the person rather than see the positives...
Most everyone is just uncritically accepting this guy's explanation. And whether he made any money or not is irrelevant . Hacking is a crime for a very good reason. What if he came hacking into your bank account or your personal details you wouldn't be so understanding. And regarding the bankers, well 2 wrongs don't make a right.