Under the plea agreement with prosecutors he faces up to 18 months in prison

Aug 28, 2013 07:27 GMT  ·  By

Andrew James Miller, 24, of Pennsylvania, US, has admitted to selling access to the computer systems of various high-profile organizations. Under the plea agreement he has made with authorities, he faces up to 18 months in prison.

According to court documents obtained by Wired, Miller, who used the online moniker “Green,” was part of a hacking group known as the Underground Intelligence Agency.

He was arrested in June. However, he has been released until he is sentenced in November.

It turns out that Miller offered undercover FBI agents root access to the supercomputers housed by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab California.

The hacker sold access to the powerful computers from the center, which are used for Energy Department projects, for $50,000 (€37,000).

Apparently, he breached the supercomputers via universities that had access to them, including a Japanese university, Harvard, and the University of California at Davis.

He also claimed to have access to servers owned by Google, Yahoo, American Express, Adobe, WordPress, and other high-profile organizations and educational institutions.

To make sure that they can prosecute him, the FBI paid the hacker for access to the systems of RNKTel, a Massachusetts-based telecoms company, ISP Layered Tech, and Domino’s Pizza.

Authorities paid Miller, via Western Union, $1,000 (€750) for access to RNKTel and Domino’s Pizza and $1,200 (€900) for access to Layered Tech’s servers.

Court documents show that another member of the Underground Intelligence Agency, Robert Burns, helped prosecutors in the case.

In addition to the prison sentence, Miller might also be sentenced to 36 months of supervised release, ordered to pay a fine, and pay restitution to all identified victims.