A 17-year-old who admitted hacking offences linked to the TalkTalk data breach in October 2015 has been given a 12-month youth rehabilitation order.
The boy, who can't be named due to his age, admitted to seven hacking offences and had his iPhone and computer hard drive confiscated by Norwich Youth Court.
Read more: New TalkTalk data: 157,000 had details stolen
The teenager involved used SQL map to identify vulnerabilities on TalkTalk’s website. After exposing this, 150,000 customer details were swiped by other hackers. Of those who had their personal data stolen, there were 15,656 full bank account numbers and sort codes accessed. An additional 28,000 customers had their obscured credit and debit card number accessed, though these card details were “orphanded” from customer data, and according to TalkTalk, could not be identified.
When the ISP revealed its financial results earlier this year, it was found that the hack cost it £60 million, with 95,000 customers leaving. Then in October 2016, the Information Commissioner’s office issued TalkTalk with a £400,000 fine, the largest ever for a data protection incident following its own investigation.
In the investigation it was found that the hackers were able to access TalkTalk's systems “with ease” and take advantage of “technical weaknesses”. Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner, said TalkTalk "should have done more" to protect customer information and that it failed to "implement the most basic cyber security measures."
During the hearing for the case in November, the 17-year-old told magistrates he was showing off his IT skills to his friends. At the sentencing hearing, the BBC reported the chairman of the bench Jean Bonnick told him: “Your IT skills will always be there - just use them legally in the future."
The 2015 cyberattack took place between October 15-21. It was initially thought the hackers were part of an Islamist group based in Russia, before several people were arrested in the UK in conjunction with the attack.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
