Perras, who hacked into computers to steal information, has been
jailed for one year.
IT security and control firm Sophos is welcoming news that a man
who pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit computer fraud and
identity theft has been sentenced to one year's imprisonment by a
Florida law court.
19-year-old Justin A Perras of New Bedford, MA, was one of five
co-defendants who admitted hacking into computers at information
management and workflow solutions provider LexisNexis. The
computers were accessed using Trojan horses and social engineering
tricks, in order to make unauthorised entries into the company's
Accurint database, which is used by law enforcement agencies
amongst others. Perras was sentenced to one year in prison,
followed by three years supervised release and 100 hours of
community service.
According to The
Washington Post three of the men revealed they had obtained
addresses and social security information on Hollywood stars such
as Demi Moore, Laurence Fishburne, Paris Hilton, and Arnold
Schwarzenegger.
The other defendants were sentenced in December 2006 for their
roles in the conspiracy, and between them must pay LexisNexis
$105,750 in compensation. Sophos experts note that the five
culprits have been banned from using computers following the
discovery of their crimes.
"The US law enforcement agencies must be congratulated again for
another big computer hacking arrest, which will hopefully deter
others from following in the footsteps of Perras, who's going
nowhere fast for the next few years," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant at Sophos. "The case demonstrates the value
of swiftly reporting any network intrusions to the appropriate
authorities, however it's likely that with Accurint, the fact that
it was used by law enforcement gave the US secret service an extra
spring in its step in tracking down the perpetrators."
Sophos recommends companies protect their desktops, servers and
gateways with a consolidated solution
thwart the threats of viruses, spyware, phishing and spam.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.