(Reuters) A British student, who hacked into social networking website Facebook’s internal networking risking “disastrous” consequences for the portal, was sentenced the term of eight months on Friday (Feb 17) in London.
Glenn Mangham, a 26-year-old software development student, admitted infiltrating social networking portal Facebook from his parental home in northern England.
The case was described by prosecutors as the most serious case of its kind.
"This was the most extensive and flagrant incidence of social media hacking to be brought before British courts," said Alison Saunders, London's Chief Prosecutor told media in London on Feb 17. "Fortunately, this did not involve any personal user data being compromised", he added.
Facebook first became aware of a security breach in its internal network in April and called in the FBI. The U.S. agents established the source of the hacking was based in Britain and British police raided Mangham's home in June.
Mangham said he had previously helped search engine Yahoo Inc improve its security and wanted to do the same for Facebook. However, prosecutors rejected his explanation.
"He said he wanted a mini project and chose Facebook because of its high-profile internet presence," prosecutor Sandip Patel told London's Southwark Crown Court.
"The prosecution does not accept that the defendant's actions were anything other than malicious."
The court was told Facebook spent $200,000 in dealing with his actions, the Press Association reported.
Judge Alistair McCreath told Mangham his actions were not harmless and had "real consequences and very serious potential consequences" which could have been "utterly disastrous" for Facebook.
"You and others who are tempted to act as you did really must understand how serious this is," he said.
