Student jailed for hacking Facebook

A British student has been jailed for eight months for hacking Facebook despite claiming that he intended to help the social network improve its security.

Glenn Mangham, 26, hacked the social media website last year from his parent’s basement, The Guardian reported.

Prosecutor Sandip Patel said Mangham stole “invaluable” intellectual property after hacking the account of a Facebook employee who was on holiday. Mangham, a software development student, said he intended to demonstrate the hack to Facebook to help it improve security. “It was to identify vulnerabilities in the system so I could compile a report that I could then bundle over to Facebook and show them what was wrong with their system," Mangham told the court.