Hackers Cut Deals

 

 

PHNOM PENH : -- Two members of “hacktivist” group Anonymous Cambodia convicted of computer hacking yesterday will be spared further jail time. Instead, they have been ordered to put their “excellent” IT skills to use combating cybercrime in the Ministry of Interior, The Phnom Penh Post reported. 

 

Bun King Mongkolpanha, 21, alias “Black Cyber”, and Chou Songheng, 20, alias “Zoro”, were found guilty of IT offences under two articles of the criminal code at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday morning and sentenced to two years in prison.

But their sentences were reduced to five months and 20 days – the amount of time they have already spent in prison since being arrested in April – and they are to be released today.

The two former SETEC Institute students are to soon begin paid work fighting cybercrime with the same Interior Ministry department that worked with the FBI to arrest them after an eight-month investigation.

Anonymous Cambodia – the local arm of the international collective – had hacked 30 government websites following last year’s disputed national election as part of what it called “Operation Cambodia Freedom”.