Hacker fined £21,000 for defrauding students


26 Nov 2010

A computer hacker posing as a student who broke into the emails of hundreds of actual students in the UK has been fined £21,000 for his illegal activities.

The man in question, 23-year-old Daniel Woo, took financial data from the accounts he attacked, some of which resulted in fraudulent activity.

Woo posed as a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Bloomsbury, central London, and was only caught when IT staff in the university noticed him installing password-capturing software, according to the Metropolitan Police website.

He used computer software known as “Cain and Able” on a number of machines, which enabled him to collect further student passwords and to covertly gather traffic passing through the university’s computer network.

Woo has been banned from entering any university, college or place of higher education for a year as well as receiving a 36-week imprisonment (suspended for two years), a two-year supervision order, 200 hours of unpaid work, and a fine of £21,000 for crimes under the Misuse of Computers Act.