American hacker who broke into Nintendo gets three years in prison

21-year-old American Ryan S. Hernandez has been sentenced to three years in prison. In 2016, he broke into Nintendo systems as a minor, where he, among other things, stole information about the then unreleased Switch.

Hernandez is punished for both hacking the Nintendo systems and for possessing child pornography. It was found on his computer when the FBI raided his home in 2019. At the beginning of this year, Hernandez already pleaded guilt. With the sentence imposed, the judge follows the prosecution’s demand. Hernandez has also agreed to pay Nintendo $ 259,323 in damages.

The convicted American, who used the nickname RyanRocks online, received login details from a Nintendo employee in 2016 via phishing. This gave him access to systems that included information about the Nintendo Switch. He then leaked this information.

After an investigation into the hack, the FBI contacted Hernandez and his parents in 2017. The American then promised to stop his activities and said he understood what the consequences would be if he continued with this.

According to the ruling, Hernandez went wrong again in 2018 and 2019, breaking into various Nintendo servers and obtaining information about games, consoles and development tools. He bragged about this on Twitter and Discord and let some of the information leak again.

Hernandez also ran a forum called Ryan’s Underground Hangout, where he discussed Nintendo products and shared information about potential vulnerabilities in Nintendo computer systems.