14 DAY TRIAL // A Los Angeles federal grand jury has indicted a 28-year-old man for sabotaging a critical system used to monitor oil pipelines for leaks. The authorities claim that the former IT consultant did it because the company he was working for did not offer him permanent employment.
Mario Azar, 28, of Upland, California, used to work as an IT technician on a temporary contract for Pacific Energy Resources Ltd. (PER), an oil- and gas-exploitation company based in Long Beach. PER operated three platforms offshore Huntington Beach, which were connected to the mainland by pipelines stretching for miles.
According to the indictment, Mr. Azar worked on setting up the computer system that the company used to establish communication with the oil extraction platforms and monitor the pipelines for any hazardous leaks. As a technician, the IT consultant had multiple accounts set up in the PER system.
Before his temporary contract was set to expire on May 8, 2008, Azar submitted a request for permanent employment with the company. After considering the petition, PER decided not to honor it and the work relationship subsequently ended.
Being upset because the company did not offer him a permanent position, the former IT staffer logged on using his still active accounts and impaired the normal functionality of a critical system for a significant period of time.
"[...] Defendant AZAR knowingly caused the transmission of programs, information, codes, and commands, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally and without authorization caused damage by impairing the integrity and availability of data, a program, a system, and information on a computer system," the indictment reads.
The prosecution maintains that Azar's action resulted in damages of at least $5,000, but while this represented a small sum of money for such a company, the real environmental risks were a lot more serious.
Security researchers constantly warn firms of the security risks upset employees can represent, especially in these times of economic crisis, when lay-offs are common. We recently reported about a drunk and distressed IT consultant that used to work for the Australian government, who illegally logged onto important servers using the password of a former co-worker and deleted over 10,000 accounts belonging to government employees.