Accused hacker charged

Paula Llewellyn, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) says her office is taking steps to safeguard computer systems in her office against hackers.

The development follows the appearance in court yesterday of a man accused of hacking into computers at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She says immediately after being informed by the police of the incident last week, she began having dialogue with justice ministry officials for immediate steps to be taken to safeguard the integrity of her files.

The accused hacker is 29-year-old Phillpot Martin and he is charged under the Cyber Crime Act.

Martin is also facing charges of unauthorised access to a computer programme or data and unlawful possession of a computer for the commission of an offence.

The Crown is alleging that on January 25 this year, the police received information and went to Martin's home in the Kingston 8 area.

The police conducted a search of the premises and removed several computer items including hard drives and laptops.

The items were taken to the Organised Crime Investigation Division and an analysis of one of the hard drives was done.

It was discovered that the hard drive contained documents which included work files belonging to an assistant director at the office of the DPP.

The prosecutor said he did not authorise anyone to access the files.

Martin, who is being represented by attorney-at-law Nadine Atkinson Flowers has been remanded to return to court on March 4.

Martin was first charged in 2009 with larceny of $10 million worth of calling in cards from Digicel while he was a computer science student at the University of Technology.

He was accused of hacking into Digicel's computer system.

The matter is pending in court.

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