Hacker Gets 3.5 Years for Revealing AT&T Vulnerability

Figured out how to access personal data of customers

A hacker charged with federal crimes for obtaining the personal data of more than 100,000 iPad owners from AT&T's publicly accessible website was sentenced on Monday to 41 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

The judge handed down the sentence following a minor skirmish in the courtroom when the defendant, Andrew Auernheimer, aka Weev, was pinned and cuffed. Auernheimer was reportedly asked to hand the court a mobile phone he had with him during the hearing, and after handing it to his defense attorney instead, court agents cuffed him.

Andrew Auernheimer, 26, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, was found guilty last November in federal court in New Jersey of one count of identity fraud and one count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization after he and a colleague created a program to collect information on iPad owners that had been exposed by a security hole in AT&T's web site.