[ISN] Hacker jailed for three years

[InfoSec News]

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Breaking/Hacker-jailed-for-three-years/2005/04/05/1112489456181.html

Stockholm
April 5, 2005 

A Hungarian who cracked the computer system of Swedish mobile
telecommunications group Ericsson was sentenced to three years in
prison on Monday for accessing top-secret documents, Swedish news
agency TT reported.

The hacker was convicted on charges of industrial espionage and
illegal use of secret information, according to the report.

The 26-year-old defendant, whose name was not revealed by the court,
could have faced a six-year jail sentence.

He admitted to gaining entry to Ericsson's intranet system illegally
but said he did not think the information he had accessed there was
classified.

The man said he wanted to expose security failings at Ericsson "as a
provocation" with the hope of being recruited for a job at the Swedish
company, TT said.

"The court followed my recommendations and determined that the charges
were founded," Tomas Lindstrand, chief international prosecutor in
Stockholm, was quoted by TT as saying.

The case covered spying between the period of March 2002 and June 2004
from countries including Sweden and Hungary.

Fingered by Swedish intelligence in 2003 when he tried to sell some of
the information he had acquired on the internet, he was arrested in
October 2004 at the airport in Malmo, southern Sweden where
investigators had arranged a "business meeting".