Hacker Poses as Graduate, Hacks Student Emails, Faces Legal Consequences

A hacker who posed as a university graduate to access the emails of hundreds of students has been given a suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay more than £20,000 in costs and compensation.

Daniel Woo, a 23-year-old Bulgarian national, was sentenced for offenses under the Misuse of Computers Act on November 25. Woo was arrested in November 2006 at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies after IT staff noticed anomalies in the computer network’s operation.

He used various hacking techniques to break into students’ accounts by obtaining their passwords. Woo then installed software called ‘Cain and Able’ on several machines, which allowed him to collect additional student passwords and monitor traffic on the university’s computer network.

It was later confirmed that fraud had occurred on several compromised payment accounts. Additionally, Woo has been banned from entering any university, college, or place of higher education without police consent for 12 months.

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