Young Liberals’ Worker Found Guilty of Hacking

On September 3, 2006 the Social Democratic Party of Sweden reported to the police about several incidents of unauthorized access of the party's computers. The suspect was believed to be a Liberal Party member. Soon after, the culprit, a Young Liberals' employee based in Sweden confessed to have hacked the PCs during three months in the beginning of this year.

Referring to the incident, Party treasurer of Social Democrats, Tommy Ohlstroem confirmed that they found their computer systems being illegally accessed for over a long time. The hacking operation was systematically performed over a wide scale. He further added that people in the party were trying to find out whatever information they could gather regarding the culprit's activities. Mr. Ohlstroem had invited everyone in the Liberal Party to come up with any related information.

The following day the Young Liberals' Party employee, aged 24, admitted that he acquired details of a local ombudsman to log on to the network of the Social Democratic Party. Consequently the employee was forced to leave his party, mentioned the press statement of the Liberal Party.

According to Johan Jakobsson, secretary, Liberal Party the Liberal Youth worker's action violated the Liberal Party's ethical guidelines and that the legal process will indicate if his action was criminal also. The worker regretted what had happened and apologized to both the Social Democrats and the Liberals.

But the Liberal Party denied having used the accessed data. The guilty said that in March when he realized that he was doing a serious offence he discontinued using the login details. He also said that in this whole incident he did not involve any other party member.

The Social Democratic Party said that although this hacking was most pronounced, as many as 78 times between January and March 2006, similar attempts were experienced since December 2005.

Legal representative of Social Democratic Party, Percy Bratt confirmed reporting the matter to the police on 3rd September 2006. He said that there were clear legal reasons of unauthorized access committed to computer systems to be put up with the police. The guilty could be punished for up to 2 years.

Related article: Young Overweight People Easily Trust Weight Loss Spam E-mails

» SPAMfighter News - 9/13/2006