March 23, 2011 12:09 pm EDT

Hacker nets two years in jail after pilfering 7 million in virtual poker chips

Crime, it just doesn't pay. Well, actually it does, to the tune of £53,612, but then you get caught and you have to work off that salary with two years at Her Majesty's pleasure. One Ashley Mitchell, an enterprising 29-year old from Devon, England, managed to break into Farmville maker Zynga's mainframe, hijack the identities of two of its staffers, and procure for himself a cool £7 million ($11.4m) in virtual poker chips. He then proceeded to sell about a third of them for the above sum, while consuming a big chunk of the rest in satisfying his own gambling habit. Ashley already had a history of digital malfeasance, having previously hacked into the systems of Torbay Council, his former employer, and is now on the receiving end of a two-year prison term for his current crime plus the activation of a 30-week suspended sentence. There's a warning in this tale of woe for us all, however -- Monsieur Mitchell piggybacked on his neighbors' unsecured WiFi networks in order to do his dastardly deeds. Slap a password on that router, won't you?

Hacker nets two years in jail after pilfering 7 million in virtual poker chips originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/23/hacker-nets-two-years-in-jail-after-pilfering-7-million-in-virt/

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