Hector Monsegur spent the last three years as a model law enforcement informant, quietly drawing out his fellow hackers and directly aiding in the arrest of members of the LulzSec hacking crew and Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond. His hard work was rewarded Tuesday, when a judge sentenced him to time served and released him. 
 
 Judge Loretta Preska determined that the seven months Monsegur, known by his hacker handle “Sabu,” spent in pre-trial detention was sufficient punishment for one of the most active hackers in the Anonymous collective and the vocal leader of the splinter group Lulzsec. Monsegur will be subjected to one year of supervised release that will include monitoring of his computer use, and he may yet be forced to pay restitution to the victims of his hacking. 
 
 The lenient sentence was the result, Preska said, of the “truly extraordinary” help Monsegur gave law enforcement since June, 2011. He spent more than three years as a well-connected mole within Anonymous during a period when it was rampaging through hundreds of hacking targets. She particularly praised Monsegur’s decision in 2011 to immediately begin aiding the FBI in tracking his friends, as a delay might have given Lulzsec and other Anonymous hackers time to destroy evidence. 
 
 “The immediacy of Mr. Monsegur’s cooperation and its around-the-clock nature was particularly helpful to the government,” she said. “That personal characteristic of turning on a dime to doing good, not evil, is the most important factor in this sentencing.” 
 
 Monsegur, a hulking man with a close-trimmed beard and hair, appeared in court wearing a billowing black shirt, and told the court he is no longer the Sabu who had brazenly led Lulzsec on dozens of hacking campaigns and spouted revolutionary rhetoric from a highly active Twitter feed . “Over the last three years I’ve gone through a lot of changes and learned a lot of lessons,” he said in a short statement. “I’ve done a lot of soul searching… and I realized I hurt my family the most. 
 
 “I’m not the same person you saw here three years ago.” 
 
 The judge also considered the harassment and threats Monsegur and his family have faced since he was publicly identified as a federal informant in March, 2012. The publicity led to an assault on Monsegur’s brother and prompted his family's decision to leave their New York home. “His family has been subject to threats, assaults, and all manner of danger,” said Preska. “For all these reasons, I find that Monsegur is entitled to a downward departure,” she added, using the legal jargon for a lighter-than-expected sentence. 
 
 In a motion (.pdf) filed over the weekend, prosecutors requested that Monsegur receive the minimum sentence in reward for his role as an “extremely valuable cooperator” with law enforcement agents. The motion stated that his work drawing out his fellow hackers in online chats and sharing their communications with the FBI helped federal authorities prosecute eight other Anonymous associates who currently face charges or have served prison sentences. Hammond was sentenced to ten years in prison last November—in the same courtroom and the same judge as the Monsegur sentencing—for his role in the hacking of the private intelligence firm Stratfor. 
 
 Monsegur’s sentence won’t end the controversy around the role he’s played on both sides of a three-year hacking saga. Questions still loom about why the FBI allowed Monsegur to continue aiding in and occasionally directing attacks–which caused millions of dollars in damage–on dozens of targets while he was under the agency’s control. During his sentencing in November, Hammond told the court Monsegur had relayed to him targets including foreign government sites. The information he stole from those sites often was passed to Monsegur. “I think the government’s use of this data needs to be investigated,” Hammond said in his sentencing statement. 
 
 In court Tuesday, however, Monsegur was instead praised as having warned authorities of security vulnerabilities he had learned about and helping get them fixed. The potential targets he was credited with helping to protect include the water supply of “a major American city” and the supply chain of a foreign energy firm. His defense attorney cited “more than 300 intrusions” he helped law enforcement prevent. 
 
 “The things you did were not so good,” Preska said to Monsegur in her final words in the hearing. But “you have done as much as any human can do” to make up for those actions, she added, “and I salute you for that.” ||||| Tweet with a location 
 
 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| A former Anonymous hacker who faced 26 years in prison for staging global cyber-attacks, was set free by a judge who credited him with helping prevent at least 300 such intrusions, including one on the U.S. Senate website. 
 
 U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan federal court today cited Hector Xavier Monsegur’s “extraordinary assistance” in secretly working with the U.S. government, sentencing him to the seven months he’d already spent in custody. She credited him for immediately agreeing to cooperate when confronted about his hacking by federal agents. 
 
 “That personal characteristic of turning on a dime and doing good instead of evil is the important factor in this sentence,” Preska said. “You’ve done as much as any human being can do in terms of helping the government to make up for past wrongs and to avert other damage to probably millions of people.” 
 
 Monsegur, 30, who used the online name Sabu, belonged to the hacker groups Internet Feds and LulzSec, an offshoot of Anonymous. LulzSec attacked computer networks at Nintendo Co. and stole confidential data on more than 70,000 potential contestants on Fox Television’s “X-Factor,” according to prosecutors. The group also attacked the computer networks of Sony Corp. (6758), the U.K.’s National Health Service, the Arizona State Police, and technology-security company HBGary Inc., U.S. said. 
 
 Around Clock 
 
 After agreeing to cooperate with the government, Monsegur worked “around the clock,” talking to hackers around the globe, including LulzSec which had vowed to destroy evidence and disband if any members were arrested, the judge said. Monsegur also helped prevent a cyber-attack on a foreign energy company and another on the water supply in a major U.S. city, Preska said. 
 
 Today in court, Monsegur, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and grey slacks, apologized for the harm he’d caused and said he had learned many lessons since he pleaded guilty to 12 crimes in August 2011. 
 
 “I assure you I will not be back in this courtroom,” he said. “I’m not the same person you saw three years ago. I’m ready to move on.” 
 
 Assistant U.S. Attorney James Pastore asked Preska not to impose a mandatory two-year prison term, citing Monsegur’s help. 
 
 While federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory, called for 21 1/2 years to more than 26 years in prison, court officials recommended probation. 
 
 Back Doors 
 
 “It’s difficult to quantify Mr. Monsegur’s cooperation,” said Pastore, adding that the defendant helped identify “back doors” or weaknesses in computer systems in corporations and foreign governments. “He was able to unmask and thwart outright or minimize hundreds of attacks,” he said. 
 
 During the time of his secret cooperation, Monsegur worked from his apartment, staying up all night talking online to his fellow hackers and then meeting with authorities passing on what he learned. 
 
 Evidence Monsegur helped develop led to the prosecution of at least five hackers, including Jeremy Hammond, who was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison by Preska for an attack on the intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor, and for interfering with eight other computer systems. 
 
 Anonymous called Monsegur a traitor in a posting on Twitter today, following the sentencing. 
 
 Anonymous Postings 
 
 “Jeremy Hammond is serving a ten-year sentence for hacks that Sabu (working for the feds) told him to do,” the group said in a posting. 
 
 Philip Weinstein, Monsegur’s lawyer, said after today’s sentencing that the hacker is still helping the government with other cases. Monsegur has been unemployed while awaiting sentence, Weinstein said. 
 
 “He’s taught the government things that they don’t know,” he said. 
 
 Before Monsegur’s cooperation, he was the only member of a crew of hackers behind a series of cyber-attacks who had been identified by authorities, the U.S. said. LulzSec had developed a plan to destroy evidence and disband if the group determined that any of its members had been arrested, according to prosecutors. 
 
 Hackers affiliated with Monsegur had attacked the websites of the governments of Algeria, Yemen and Zimbabwe, the U.S. previously said. 
 
 Monsegur’s family had to be relocated by the FBI when his identity as a government informant was made public, his lawyer Peggy Cross-Goldenberg told Preska today. He was also threatened by some who incorrectly speculated that he assisted in the investigation and prosecution of Silk Road, the billion-dollar online website where customers used bitcoins to buy and sell drugs, according to the U.S. 
 
 The case is U.S. v. Monsegur, 11-cr-00666, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). 
 
 For Related News and Information: Top Stories:{TOP<GO 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at 
 
 pathurtado@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net Joe Schneider, Andrew Dunn
– Hector Monsegur might well be the most hated man in the world of hackers these days, but he's also a free man as a result. A judge today let the 30-year-old Monsegur off with 7 months' time served, even though he faced up to 26 years in prison, reports Bloomberg. The reason is that the former leader of the Anonymous offshoot LulzSec immediately turned into an informant upon his arrest three years ago. Prosecutors say he then worked "around the clock" as a mole, collaborating with fellow hackers and turning over the information to the feds. “I assure you I will not be back in this courtroom,” Monsegur, aka Sabu, told the judge today. “I’m not the same person you saw three years ago.” The judge credited his "extraordinary assistance" with helping stop 300 hacks, adding that the threats and public harassment he has faced since becoming an informer played a role in the light sentence, reports Wired. Monsegur helped the feds bust high-profile US hacker Jeremy Hammond, though Hammond made clear at his sentencing that he felt both Monsegur and the government entrapped him. On Twitter today, Anonymous is asking people to show support for Hammond.