A member of the Underground Intelligence Agency pled guilty for hacking “into multiple corporate, university and government computer networks… including access to supercomputers from a U.S. national security laboratory” as reported by Computerworld.  24 year old Andrew Miller pled guilty in August 2013 “to one count of conspiracy and two counts of computer fraud for actions committed between 2008 and 2011.”  The FBI presented evidence that Miller:

…asked an undercover FBI agent in 2011 for $50,000 in exchange for access to two supercomputers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, according to the DOJ [Department of Justice].

…claimed to have hacked into servers from American Express, Yahoo, Google, Adobe, WordPress, Cisco, Harvard University and the University of California at Davis. He also claimed to have accessed very sensitive U.S. government networks from agencies including NASA, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.

Although Miller faced “a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines” US District Judge Mark Wolf (Massachusetts) followed the US Attorney’s recommendation and sentenced Miller to 18 months in jail although Miller stated that”… he was very sorry for his actions, is seeing a psychiatrist for depression, and is needed at home to help care for his mother, who is very ill.”

Hopefully hackers will realize that there are severe penalties for violating federal laws.

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