UK: Hacker Dodges Prison Term

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Via ZDNet.co.uk.

[snip]

A hacker has been sentenced to eight months imprisonment, suspended for
two years, for compromising accounts on an Internet dating site.

Matthew Byrne pleaded guilty to gaining control of and defacing four
member profiles on the loveandfriends.com dating site in August 2004.
He was sentenced on Tuesday at Southwark Crown Court by Judge Geoffrey
Rivlin, according to a Metropolitan Police spokesman.

Byrne gained control of the profiles using a dictionary attack, a
technique that cracks a password or cipher by searching against a
number of likely possibilities. The compromised profiles had "easily
guessable" passwords, the Met Police website said.

The hacker did not gain access to the "loveandfriends" database or web
servers.

[snip]

More:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39284627,00.htm

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg(at)netzero.net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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