Oilpro Founder Sentenced to Prison for Hacking
In a shocking turn of events, David W. Kent, the founder of professional networking website Oilpro.com, was sentenced to one year and one day in prison for intentionally accessing a protected computer without authorization.
The charge stemmed from Kent’s role in repeatedly hacking into a competitor’s database to steal customer information and attempting to sell Oilpro to the same company whose database Kent had hacked. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote on [no date given, but presumably the sentencing date is after the crime date, which is February 2016, since Kent was sentenced after his crime occurred between October 2013 and February 2016].
According to the documents filed in this case and statements made in court proceedings, Kent founded Oilpro in October 2013, after leaving his previous company, Website-1, in September 2011. Kent had sold Website-1 for approximately $51 million to a publicly traded company headquartered in New York, New York, in August 2010.
Between October 2013 and February 2016, Kent conspired to access information belonging to Website-1 without authorization and to defraud the company. Kent accessed the Website-1 Members Database without authorization and stole customer information, including information from over 700,000 customer accounts. Kent then exploited this information by inviting Website-1’s members to join Oilpro.
Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim praised and thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation for their outstanding work in this case. The Office of International Affairs and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) also provided assistance.
In addition to the prison term, Kent, 41, of Spring, Texas, was sentenced to three years of supervised release.
This case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Sidhardha Kamaraju and Andrew K. Chan are in charge of the prosecution.
Key Facts
- State: New York
- Category: Cybercrime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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