A former journalist was sentenced to spend two years in jail Wednesday, after he was found guilty of helping hackers to gain access to a newspaper content management system, the US Department of Justice said. The case also became widely debated on as how the federal court will prosecute an offender with hacking-related crime.
According to NBC News, Mathew Keys was sentenced to two years of imprisonment. He was found guilty to the charges of conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer and two other counts. Keys was accused of providing administrator access in 2010 to the Tribune Media content management system, which allowed Anonymous Hackers to deface the website of the Los Angeles Times.
In 2013, he was indicted with the said charges with the help of a member of Anonymous hacker group, Hector "Sabu" Monsegur convinced by the FBI to testify against him, IT News reported. Evidences pointed to him such as "Internet relay chat logs" recovered from the hacker member.
He was found guilty by a California jury last October. Tribune Company owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other media companies, the Guardian reported. The hacking incident in 2010, involves Keys, on which he assisted to alter a story on the Times website, prosecutors said.
Keys was a former employee of KTXL-TV station owned by the Tribune Co.'s Fox affiliate in Sacramento. US attorney's office described Keys as a "disgruntled former employee" who wants to revenge to his former employer who fired him.
Shortly after the sentenced was delivered in a Sacramento federal court, Keys took on his social media, and wrote, he will file an appeal. "We're not only going to work to reverse the conviction but try to change this absurd computer law, as best we can," he wrote.
Reuters terminated Keys, who was a social media editor at the said news agency after the hacking incident news broke out and prosecutors press charges against him in 2013.
