Ex-Con Goes Back to Jail for Breaching Prison Computer System

Francis Janosko, a former inmate at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in Massachusetts, was sent back to jail over charges of breaking into a prison computer system. Janosko was apprehended by the FBI last week in North Carolina for ostensibly accessing the facility's computer without consent as well as pilfering classified data. Among the informatin stilen wwere Social Security numbers and other personal information of about 1,100 current and former prison workers.

Janosko is purported to be given a thin-client device while serving time at Plymouth County correctional center to access a server consisting of legal research. The system was supposedly reconfigured to block inmates from accessing applications, but somehow, Janosko found a hole in the legal research software that enabled him to batter down all the controls that had been embedded in the system.

The indictment of Janosko also states that he was able to get hold of a username and password for breaking into a vital prison management application and he tried to log into the program, though he wasn't successful.