Former Network Admin Turns Full-Time Criminal

A former computer network administrator from San Jose, California, will receive a prison sentence between 6 and 12 years after pleading guilty to multiple counts of second degree burglary, computer hacking, identity theft, and possession and intention to sell illicit methamphetamines.

Andrew Madrid, 34, used to work as a network administrator for a San Jose-based company. After being sacked, he hacked into the company's network and destroyed data, in the hope that his former employer would ask him to return to fix it. When his plan of getting re-employed failed, Madrid went on a crime spree, and orchestrated several schemes involving computer hacking, social engineering, identity theft and forgery.

In one of his schemes, he raided several companies in search for valuable IT equipment that he could steal and sell. According to Ben Field, Deputy District Attorney with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, Madrid posed as IT security workers or security guards in order to fool any employee that might have been suspicious of him. His techniques consisted of dressing up as a security guard, and using his IT knowledge to impersonate IT staff to access certain areas of the building, or of stealing access cards left in plain sight by careless employees. His tech-background helped him identify and target the most valuable items.

Another scheme involved artificially decreasing the price of electronic equipment with the help of fake bar codes. According to the Deputy District Attorney, Madrid walked into retail stores and attached fake Universal Product Code (UPC) stickers, manufactured and printed by him, to expensive equipment, which he was then able to buy for a significantly lower price. In order to make it hard for authorities to track him down, the ex-network admin used the unsecured wireless connections of his neighbors while hacking. In addition, he forged the identities of other individuals while doing the crimes he now stands accused of.

A press release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office informs that no less than five different law enforcement agencies cooperated in order to identify and arrest Andrew Madrid. The REACT Task Force, the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety, the Los Gatos Police Department, the Santa Clara Police Department, and the San Jose Police Department investigated the hacker's crimes. According to ComputerWorld, Mr. Ben Field concluded that "this was one of the most sophisticated computer crimes our office has prosecuted."