This article is interesting not because the hacker is convicted, but because of the reader comments at the end. The first post defends the hacker and blames AT&T for their system not being secure enough and allowing a breach. The next poster says that is akin to blaming a bank if they are robbed because their doors are not secure enough. Another poster points out that both are to blame.
In our judicial system of criminal and civil liability I believe the third poster is most right. The hacker is guilty of a crime while AT&T will bear the civil liabilities. Here is the story:
http://www.zdnet.com/jury-convicts-hacker-over-at-and-t-ipad-user-data-b…
Smoke testing is a term used to describe the testing process for servers after patches are applied. 
Estimating an average time for patching servers and PCs can be a bit tricky. It can vary from one month to the next, depending upon the number and complexity of the patches released by your software vendors. You must consider all versions of operating systems and have a complete inventory of all your application software to do this job correctly. Our experience has shown that manual patching of systems takes on average of about 1.5 hours each.
This is a basic cost calculator for you to compute your typical monthly cost for patching your servers, PCs, laptops, tablets and associated application software. It also forms the basis for you to begin calculating your Return on Investment for software patching, or for comparison with alternatives to the manual process of patching operating systems and application software—such as Patch Management as a Service, also known as Vulnerability Management as a Service.