Autistic Hacked company in order to be hired by them

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The retail giant Sports Direct’s website went down for 30m minutes which cost them the loss of sales of approx. £48,000 (USD 61540) to £50,000 (USD 64105). We already informed you that the retail giant suffered the data breach in February this year, but the latest report is quite surprising. Jason Polyik, the hacker responsible for shutting down Sports Direct, states that he did so because he wanted the firm to employ him.

The loss for the company wasn’t restricted to sales only as the company had to spend £15,000 in consultancy fees to get the vulnerability in their system fixed. Joe Harvey, mitigating, told Derby Telegraph that the 27-year old Polyik probably was searching for a vulnerability in their site believing that just like Google and Amazon, where hiring people who successfully identified flaws in computer systems, Sports Direct will also offer him employment.

The motive behind the hacking was to show how easy it was to hack the system that they have been using. Polyik conducted the hacking spree between July and September 2016.

However, his hacking obsession has landed him in jail as Polyik has been sentenced a 10-month long prison term and also received a suspension for a year. According to Judge Peter Cooke, Polyik carried out “determined hacking” by shutting down the Sports Direct website because of which the company had to bear the loss of thousands of pounds and pay a “significant” amount for getting the problem fixed.

"He is a talented graphic artist, but no-one wanted to work with him because of his social issues. He is socially awkward and on the autism spectrum. He has honed and shaped his skills over a number of years,” explained Harvey.