Hacker jailed in fraud case that led to student's death

18-year-old college candidate tricked out of money she needed for tuition

A hacker connected with the high-profile case of a college-bound student who died after having her tuition stolen was sentenced on Thursday to six years in prison for illegally obtaining private information.

The Luozhuang District People's Court in Linyi, Shandong province, ruled that in April 2016 Du Tianyu planted a malicious Trojan horse program into a computer network operated by the Shandong college exam authorities and obtained more than 640,000 pieces of personal data about students who were to take the national college examination later that year.