NetSuite hacker given 12 months' jail

A US hacker has been handed 12 months' jail time and a US$124,000 (A$168,266) fine for infiltrating the corporate network of cloud ERP vendor NetSuite.

Robert Saunders was arrested in 2014 and later admitted to penetrating the NetSuite network several times over two months in 2012.

Saunders reached a plea bargain with the US Department of Justice last week which saw him plead guilty to one charge of intentional damage to a protected computer.

He had originally been charged with one count of intentionally damaging a protected computer, four counts of obtaining information from a protected computer without authorisation, and two counts of possessing a firearm while using an illegal substance.

The Justice department said the hacker caused US$189,000 (A$256,510) worth of damage to the company.

"Saunders admitted that on one occasion he changed information for a demonstration account belonging to a retail business customer of the corporation and that his actions prevented potential customers from accessing the test account," the department said in a statement.

"On other occasions, Saunders obtained information through his unlawful access to a database and posted offensive content in the corporation’s test account."

Saunders was also given a three-year probation to follow his release, and was ordered to hand over the computer equipment he used to hack the NetSuite network.

He will start serving his 12-month sentence on July 29.