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Hungarian hacker gets 30 months for extortion plot on Marriott

Written by Jaikumar Vijayan Monday, 06 February 2012 10:27

Hacker demanded a $150K job, free hotel room and the right to work whenever he wanted

Computerworld - A Hungarian hacker who attempted to extort money from Marriott International Inc. by stealing confidential data from its computers and threatening to expose it was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Attila Nemeth, 26, will also serve three years of supervised release following his prison term, federal prosecutors said in a statement Friday.

Nemeth had previously pleaded guilty to charges of transmitting malicious code and attempted extortion, in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

According to court documents, Nemeth informed Marriott officials in November 2010 that he had gained access to the company's computers and had stolen proprietary information from its systems.

As proof, he emailed Marriott eight documents, seven of which were later confirmed to be proprietary company information. The stolen data included sensitive financial information.

An investigation by Marriott showed that Nemeth had planted two remotely controlled Trojans on the company's systems that allowed him access to other systems on the network. Nemeth gained initial access to the systems by getting a handful of Marriott employees to click on infected email attachments that he had sent to them.

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