Canadian boy, 12, pleads guilty to hacking government websites

A boy, 12, from suburban Montreal pleaded guilty to charges related to hacking websites including that of the Montreal police, court records said. The unidentified boy, from Notre-Dame-de-Grace, hacked into several public and non-public websites in 2012, including those of the police, the Quebec Institute of Public Health and the Chilean government, causing $60,000 in damage and leaving some websites out of service for as long as two days, police said. Although there was no political motive, the court was told he traded pirated information to the Anonymous network of computer activists for video games, the Canadian news agency QMI reported Friday. "He saw it as a challenge," the boy's lawyer said in court Thursday. "There was no political purpose." The boy will be sentenced next month. QMI noted a similar case in 2000 in which another Montreal boy, 15, did an estimated $1.7 billion in damage through hacking. He was sentenced to eight months in youth detention and subsequently received numerous cybersecurity job offers.