Inmate hacks prison network

2008-11-11

Dan Goodin, The Register, is reporting that a former prison inmate has been arrested and charged with hacking the faculty's computer network, stealing personal details of more than 1,100 prison employees and making them available to fellow inmates.

The article states that the inmate "used a thin client that was connected to a prison server, the prisoner was able to access an employee database by exploiting a bug in legal research software made available to inmates." This allowed the inmate to obtain the personal information of the employees working at Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts. This included names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, and telephone numbers.

The inmate then made the information accessible to other inmates. Goodin states that that he also obtained the username and password to a prison management program and was able to access the internet to download videos and digital photographs of prison employees, inmates and aerial shots of the prison. The hacking took place between October 2006 and February 2007.

You can read the full article here.