IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's system

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Lester
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IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's system

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May 21, 2014, 4:25 PM — A former network engineer for oil and gas company EnerVest has been sentenced to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in January to sabotaging the company's systems badly enough to disrupt its business operations for a month.

Ricky Joe Mitchell of Charleston, West Virginia, must also pay $428,000 in restitution and a $100,000 fine, according to an announcement this week from U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's office.


http://www.itworld.com/legal/419881/it- ... ers-system
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genlock
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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How did they know it was him.
Was he stupid enough to leave tracks back to him?
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lastone
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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I was accused of something similar when I abruptly left WVKM. The transmitter started going off and I was picked as the reason. It got so bad the owner had 'spys' at the transmitter site ant the power source (a mile away) to 'catch' me doing it. Not certain how long this went on. One day an employee called me begging to know why it was doing this because she was accused of doing it with the remote control durring her shift. I told her it really was a fault in the transmitter and the owner needed an Engineer to fix it.
It was their problem and it wasn't caused by me!

So what was it? When the fan goes out in the Orban, it drifts off frequency. The transmitter shuts down....until it cools off and auto-restarts. It needed a fan! :)
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genlock
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

Post by genlock »

I used to cut the tape in a cart and turn it over and splice it back together.
It was great fun. Or throw a loop in a long reel tape about half way thru.
The arms would snap up and the thing would stop. Too bad if the operator guy was outside taking a smoke or had run down the block for a burger.
Good times, good times.
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Dave Harman
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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They fired the guy, but didn't remove his remote access password. So he "returned the server to its original configuration".

In case you have any ideas about applying that action to YOUR companies system, note that it's a federal crime.... especially at a federally licensed broadcast facility :)
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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He must not have been any good or he would have covered his tracks somehow.
Maybe like spreading the password around on the internet or something.
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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Dave Harman wrote:They fired the guy, but didn't remove his remote access password. So he "returned the server to its original configuration".
I am not sure who was more stupid, the IT security person that did not diable remote access, the IT guy that was fired and still logged into the system in a traceable manner, or the Sys Admin that was not backing up the server and did not have a disaster recovery plan to put the system back online in (about) 24 hours. :roll:

In the "big boy" world of IT, we practice for this scenario every year so our systems will not be down less than 24 hours.
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

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Will not be down less than 24 hours?

You practice for THAT?

Terp, trying not to be doubly negative.
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Re: IT pro gets prison time for sabotaging ex-employer's sys

Post by Tom Taggart »

"down less than 24 hours"--that would be if he wants a day off. Now for long weekends, it is "down less than 72 hours"--or, in other words, I'll get to it first thing Tuesday.
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