VOIP Hacker Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison

A man US federal authorities said is the first person to be charged with hacking voice-over-IP providers and reselling hacked VOIP services was handed a 10-year prison sentence on 24 September.

Scheme to defraud VOIP service providers

Pena masterminded a scheme to defraud VOIP service providers by posing as a legitimate wholesaler of Internet-based phone services and selling discounted service plans. According to authorities, he was able to offer such low prices is because he would secretly hack into the computer networks of VOIP providers and route his customers’ calls.

In this way, Pena sold more than 10 million minutes of Internet phone service to his unsuspecting customers, causing a loss of more than $1.4m (£885,000) in less than a year. Among his victims was a Newark-based company that transmits VOIP services for other telecommunications businesses and was billed for more than 500,000 unauthorised telephone calls.