Worker Gets 10 Months for Spying on Boss

A former U.S. government security auditor has been sentenced to 10 months in jail and home confinement after pleading guilty to snooping on his supervisor’s computer.

Kenneth Kwak of Chantilly, Va., pleaded guilty in March to gaining unauthorized access to a government computer. He faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a US$250,000 fine.

In his plea, Kwak admitted to snooping on his supervisor’s files while working on securing U.S. Department of Education computer systems. Kwak then shared information on his supervisor’s e-mail and Internet habits with fellow workers, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement Friday.

The DoJ previously said there was no evidence that Kwak made any money from his actions.

Kwak was sentenced to five months in prison, to be followed by five months home confinement. He was also ordered to pay $40,000 to the U.S. government and will serve a total of three years of supervised release.

“The prosecution was part of the ‘zero tolerance policy’ recently adopted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office regarding intrusions into U.S. government computer systems,” the DoJ statement said.

-Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

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