Ballarat Magistrates Court: hacker pleads guilty

By Emily Sobey
Updated November 2 2012 - 4:03pm, first published April 7 2011 - 2:19pm

A MAN who hacked into the Ballarat City Council and Golden Plains Shire online networks last year has been fined $6000 for his actions.Bradley David Ward, 22, of Ballarat, appeared in Ballarat Magistrates Court yesterday and pleaded guilty to two charges of intentionally causing unauthorised access to restricted data.Ward initially faced four charges, two of which were dropped during yesterday’s plea hearing.Police prosecutor Leading Senior Constable Pepe Brown said Ward accessed the sites from his home laptop computer last August.The hacking gave unauthorised access to payroll data and emails, but not ratepayer details.Ballarat City Council’s network shut down for a week after the hacking, with council saying there would be a considerable cost to rebuild the system.Leading Senior Constable Brown said a youth at a community radio station in Echuca gave Ward passwords to access the networks.After accessing Ballarat City Council’s network, Ward told mayor Craig Fletcher he could access the site, who then told council’s information technology manager about the breach.The court heard Ward accessed the Golden Plains Shire websites twice and logged on for more than three hours in total.He met with Ballarat council’s IT manager on August 23 and revealed how he accessed the site.Police later searched Ward’s home and seized his Toshiba laptop.Barrister Tim Marsh told the court the youth who gave Ward the password was bragging about being able to access the Ballarat site.Mr Marsh said Ward’s main motivation was curiosity and it concerned him the network was so easily accessible.“(Ward) didn’t believe what he had been told and wanted to see if it was possible ... he found it to be true and that it was visible to anyone who had the password,” he said.“There is no evidence of malicious behaviour. All he’s done is gain access.”The court heard Ward ran a web-hosting business that he was trying to rebuild after he lost clients who were concerned about his charges.“I urge you to consider a good behaviour bond, without conviction,” Mr Marsh said.But Magistrate Tim McDonald said he could not reconcile with the fact Ward’s motivation was curiosity, given the time he spent on the sites.Mr McDonald said he needed to consider a sentence that would deter Ward and the public from committing such offences, and convicted and fined him $6000.

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