Charity Hacker Jailed for One and a Half Years

A former IT specialist, who hacked into the computer network of a Miami-based charity where he used to work, has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. The hacker deleted numerous important files from the systems and disabled the voice mail service.

Back in August, we reported that a computer technician, named Luis Robert Altamarino, was arrested and charged with computer fraud for hacking into the computer network of the United Way of Miami-Dade (UWMD) charity. According to the authorities, the incident occurred in December 2008, approximately one year after Mr. Altamarino stopped working for the company.

Altamarino admitted to have deleted records from multiple UWMD servers, as well as disabling the charity's telephone voice mail system, thus leaving the company's employees unable to access their accounts. He pleaded guilty on September 16th, 2009.

The hacker appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Donald L. Graham on Tuesday and received a sentence of one and a half years in jail, the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, announce in a joint press-release . He was also ordered to pay over $50,000 in restitution.

This conviction resulted from an investigation led by FBI’s Computer Intrusion Squad and Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART). "As illustrated by this case, computer intrusions are very damaging to businesses. As we move towards the future, cyber threats will continue to remain a top priority for the FBI," Special Agent in Charge John V. Gillies, commented.

Judging by the number of cases where disgruntled people have damaged the computers of their former employers, this is a significant security threat. Experts urge companies to always revoke the credentials of people who leave their employment, especially now when the economic crisis has resulted in many lay-offs.

The reasons pushing people to perform this kind of acts are diverse. At the beginning of the month, we reported about two colleagues, who left to work for a new company and hacked their former employer's network to steal private information for commercial gain.

In September, an IT consultant pleaded guilty to tampering with a SCADA system at a gas and oil extraction company. The technician helped design the system on a temporary work contract and decided to damage it after he was refused permanent employment by the company.