Motorcycle Forum / Country Specific / UK Group / August 2007

ZDnet - Monday, August 13 12:11 pm

A British web designer has been given a suspended jail sentence after
hacking into a competitor's website.

Mark Hopkins, of Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, pleaded guilty to
unauthorised access to computer systems. He was sentenced on Thursday
to 20 weeks in custody suspended for two years.

The victim was ME Publishing, which publishes the respected Motorcycle
Trader magazine.

ME Publishing found in 2005 that its website had been hacked and a
large amount of internal information had been downloaded. A team of
web consultants employed by ME Publishing traced the attack to the
Solihull office of Hopkins' company, NXGN.

NXGN supplies web services to Motorcycle Trader's rival Motor Cycle
News, as well as other well-known sites, including fish4bikes.

NXGN denied hacking into the Motorcycle Trader site, prompting ME
Publishing's web consultants to send a technical report to the
Metropolitan Police. Hopkins was subsequently arrested for a breach of
the Computer Misuse Act.

As well as his suspended sentence, Hopkins will have to serve 100
hours of community service and pay £5,000 compensation, plus £2,500
for police and prosecution costs.

Mark Roberts, of the Met Police Computer Crime Unit, said: "This
sentencing is an excellent example of how industry and the police are
working together to tackle those who would commit e-crime."
-----------------------------------------------

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/zdnet/20070813/ttc-web-designer-sentenced-for-hacking-2
0a87fa_2.html