Computer hacker punished

Computer hacker punished

HAMBURG, Germany (AP): A 27-year-old Indonesian student was convicted Thursday of computer sabotage and attempted extortion for breaking into a Miami computer firm's database and then trying to force them to buy his security program.

Andy Hendrata, an Indonesian studying computer science in Germany, was given a suspended sentence of one year and fined 2,500 marks ($1,500).

He confessed to breaking into the ICA-Nect company's computers last year via the Internet. After he was caught and kicked out of the system several times, he said he became angry and erased its customer data base, costing the firm an estimated $100,000.

He then demanded $30,000 from ICA-Nect for a security system he had written.

His attorney called it a prank. "He is addicted to computers," Otma Kury said of Hendrata.