Breaking News

Hacker who reported a flaw in Hungarian Magyar Telekom faces up to 8-years in jail

Hungarian police arrested a young hacker because he discovered and exploited serious vulnerabilities in the systems of the Magyar Telekom

Which are the risks for a hacker that decide to publicly disclose a vulnerability?

The case I’m going to discuss shows us legal implication for this conduct.

Last year, Hungarian law enforcement arrested a young hacker (20) because he discovered and exploited serious vulnerabilities in the systems of the Magyar Telekom, the major Hungarian telecommunication company.

Now the hacker is facing up to 8 years in prison.

According to the local media, in April 2018 the hacker found a serious security vulnerability in the website of the telco company, he exploited the issue to penetrate the telecommunications network.

The Hungarian youngster first reported the flaw the company that invited him to a meeting to discuss the possibility to let him test its systems.

The boy went to Budapest for the meeting, but the company did not permit him to conduct further tests on systems.

However, the young hacker continued testing the Magyar Telekom networks and discovered another severe flaw in May. This second vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to access all public and retail mobile and data traffic, and monitor the servers of the firm.

“Negotiations were stalled, but the programmer continued to search for a more serious vulnerability that could allow access to all public and retail mobile and data traffic.” reported the Napi.hu website. 

“However, this was spotted by Telekom’s people, which Andras also noticed, and then abandoned testing. Telekom, on the other hand, filed a complaint for his action, and in three weeks, the police also appeared to him – recalls the HCLU.”

The activity of the hacker was detected by the experts at Magyar Telekom that reported the unauthorized intrusion to the police that arrested him.

The man is currently on trial and the Hungarian Prosecution Service requested a prison sentence. The non-profit human rights watchdog
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union is defending the boy. The Prosecutor’s Office argues that the action of the boy posed a serious risk for the society.

“The prosecutor’s office offered Andras a bargain that if he admitted his guilt, he would only receive a 2-year suspended prison, but if he did not avail himself of it, he would be sentenced to 5 years of download. All this, according to HCLU, the court did not see any evidence.” continues the local media.

The young hacker refused the plea deal, and the worst is that prosecutors have added other charges to the indictment, such as disrupting the operation of a “public utility.”

Due to the new charges, the boy now is risking to be condemned to 8 years if proven guilty.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Magyar Telekom, hacking)

[adrotate banner=”5″] [adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

American fast-fashion firm Hot Topic hit by credential stuffing attacks

Hot Topic suffered credential stuffing attacks that exposed customers' personal information and partial payment data.…

2 hours ago

Cisco addressed high-severity flaws in IOS and IOS XE software

Cisco addressed multiple vulnerabilities in IOS and IOS XE software that can be exploited to…

16 hours ago

Google: China dominates government exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities in 2023

Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant reported a surge in the number of actively…

22 hours ago

Google addressed 2 Chrome zero-days demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2024

Google addressed two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Chrome web browser that have been demonstrated during…

1 day ago

INC Ransom stole 3TB of data from the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland

The INC Ransom extortion group hacked the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland and is threatening…

2 days ago

CISA adds Microsoft SharePoint bug disclosed at Pwn2Own to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability disclosed at the…

2 days ago

This website uses cookies.