Facebook hacking brings 1-year prison term

• Tweet

LONDON, May 17 (UPI) -- A 21-year-old British man has been sentenced to a year in prison for hacking into an American Facebook user's account last year.

Gareth Crosskey had pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the United Kingdom's Computer Misuse Act of 1990 by illegally accessing a Facebook account belonging to an unidentified individual in the United States, ZDNet.com reported Thursday.

The FBI, after being contacted by the victim, traced the source of the hack to Britain, and turned the investigation over to the Metropolitan Police Central e-Crime Unit, which tracked down the suspect, arresting Crosskey at his home in July 2011.

Crosskey pleaded guilty to using a computer to gain unauthorized access to a program/data as well as performing unauthorized acts with intent to impair operation of, or prevent/hinder access to, a computer.

"The PCeU are working to detect and bring before the courts those responsible for this type of offense," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.