Hacker Sentenced To Prison For One Year
Hacker Sentenced To One Year in Prison
A former employee at computer-monitor maker ViewSonic Corp. was
sentenced Monday to one year in prison for hacking into the company's
computer system and wiping out critical data central to running its
foreign operations.
Andrew Garcia, 39, worked as a network administrator at the company's
Walnut, Calif., office, where he maintained computer servers and had
access to system passwords for managers.
Garcia pleaded guilty in October to one count of "accessing a
protected computer and recklessly causing damage" at ViewSonic,
according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of
California in Los Angeles. ViewSonic reported more than $1 billion in
annual revenue in 2003.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter sent Garcia to prison for having
accessed ViewSonic's computer system on April 14, 2002, approximately
two weeks after he had been terminated, deleting critical files on a
server he maintained while employed by the company. The loss of those
files made the server inoperative, and ViewSonic's Taiwan office was
unable to access important data for several days.
