A United States district court judge has sentenced a member of the hacking group Anonymous to 10 years in prison for hacking into the computers of a geopolitical analysis firm.
Jeremy Hammond, 28, was sentenced by Judge Loretta Preska during a hearing last Friday in New York.
He was arrested in March last and charged with hacking into the computer system of analyst firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) and obtaining subscriber and credit card information and emails, among other data.
The information he stole were leaked and the associated credit cards were used to make $700,000 in purchases according to a report on the online technology publication Computerworld.com.
In May this year, Hammond pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage in computer hacking under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Hammond’s lawyer had argues that his acts were a form of civil disobedience against a government subcontractor. Preska rejected the argument.
When he was 19-years-old, Hammond was sentenced to jail time for a minor hacking incident.
Hammond admitted to breaking into servers of law enforcement agencies, private organizations and companies that collaborated with government surveillance.