Man Gets 2 Years For Hacking Into NASA, Minn. Company
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Texas man who admitted hacking into the computer systems of a Minnesota company and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Jeremey Parker, 26, of Houston, pleaded guilty in February to one count of wire fraud.
According to a plea agreement, Parker admitted that from December 2008 through October 2009 he hacked into the computer networks of Eden Prairie-based Digital River and stole about $275,000.
He also admitted that in September 2009, he hacked into two NASA computer servers that supported oceanographic data being sent back to Earth via satellites. The NASA servers didn't control the satellites themselves, but allowed researchers who paid a fee to access the data coming from the satellites.
Prosecutors said when Parker hacked into the servers, he made the data freely available. NASA spent about $43,000 to repair the damage.
