A federal judge has sentenced a former federal employee to five months in prison and five months of home confinement for hacking into a supervisor's computer at the Department of Education.

Kenneth Kwak, 34, of Chantilly, Virginia, had entered a guilty plea to one count of intentionally gaining unauthorized access to a government computer and obtaining information from it.

In his plea, Kwak, who had been working in an office responsible for ensuring the security of Department of Education computer systems, admitted that he had placed software on a supervisor's computer that enabled Kwak to access the computer's storage at will.

He later used that access to view his supervisor's intra-office and Internet email as well as his other Internet activity and communications, prosecutors alleged. Kwak also shared the information with others in his office, the prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered Kwak to pay restitution to the U.S. government in the amount of $40,000 and serve a three-year term of supervised release. Lamberth ordered the five months of home confinement with electronic monitoring as a special condition of this term of supervised release.