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A fired US system administrator wreaked havoc on his former employer’s IT infrastructure in the hope of getting an offer to return to his position. However, instead of resorting to the help of an ex-employee, the management of a large financial company in which an IT specialist worked turned to law enforcement agencies. Now the unlucky strategist faces an impressive term and a fine.
audacious plan
American system administrator Casey Umetsu (Casey K. Umetsu), who sabotaged the work of a major financial company, for which he himself worked, pleaded guilty. This is stated in a press release published on the official website. US Department of Justice.
40-year-old Umetsu from Honolulu (Hawaii, USA) from 2017 to 2019 worked as a system administrator in one of the large financial companies. His tasks included ensuring the normal functioning of the corporate network and assisting staff in resolving technical issues.
When the employer refused to renew the employment relationship with him, the specialist came up with a plan of how to get the bosses to change their minds and take him back to work. Umetsu decided that if he managed to sabotage the work of the company, partially disabling its IT infrastructure, then the former bosses would immediately begin to beg him to return and fix everything and, moreover, increase his wages, follows from the case file.
Penalty for carelessness
Having on hand still relevant “keys” – logins and passwords from various elements infrastructure– set to work. As noted Ministry of JusticeUmetsu interfered with the normal operation of the company’s website by redirecting mail and web-traffic coming from it to computersunrelated to the firm. This resulted in inoperability as the siteand email services used by employees.
Umetsu expected to receive a higher salary, but instead he will probably lose his freedom
AT such state of the site and services Email stayed for several days. This was facilitated by Umetsu, taking various steps that prevented the company’s IT department from restoring normal network operation.
While Umetsu’s actions are criminal as well as reprehensible, company management should probably adjust its security policies if they allow a fired employee to retain access to any of the company’s electronic resources.
Sad end
In the end, the company realized who exactly was behind attackand contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) USA. Law enforcers managed to track down Umetsu, and now he will have to stand trial.
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Safety
The system administrator-adventurer has already admitted his guilt, and he faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. The verdict will be announced on January 19, 2023.
Don’t piss off IT
A pissed-off IT professional with broad powers can cause enormous damage to his employer.
In May 2022, CNews wrote about how IT-specialist Chinese real estate giant Lianjia Han Bin (Han Bing) deleted all information from the hard drives of two servers companies. As a result, the work of some departments was paralyzed. Just one recovery remote data cost the firm $30,000. Han Bing was sent to prison for 7 years for his misdeeds.
At the end of March 2021, a former employee American service provider IT consulting, Deepanshu Kher (Deepanshu Kher) hacked the network of the client company that influenced his dismissal and deleted 1.2 thousand accounts in Microsoft 365 out of 1.5 thousand. This completely paralyzed the work of the company. It took $600,000 and three weeks to recover the data.
Dmitry Stepanov