14 DAY TRIAL // An information technology director, who took revenge on his former employer after being fired by deleting part of his website, was sentenced to 27 months in prison.
Darnell H. Albert-El, 53, of Richmond, VA, pleaded guilty to one count of intentionally damaging a protected computer without authorization on June 29, 2010.
He used to work as an information technology director for a Richmond-based supplier of telecommunication equipment called Transmarx LLC, but his contract was terminated in June 2008.
As part of his job, Albert-El had administrator-level access to the company's computer network, including its website hosted in Suwanee, GA.
On July 25, 2008, the former network admin connected to the server hosting the company's website and started deleting files.
He admitted that he connected from his personal computer and intentionally removed around 1,000 files related to the Transmarx website, because he was angry for being fired.
The total losses suffered by the company as a result of the incident were estimated at over $6,000 and in addition to the 27-month jail sentence, Albert-El was ordered to pay $6,700 in restitution.
The sentence was handed out on Friday in the Eastern District of Virginia by Senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne.
The case was investigated by the FBI and was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Thomas Dukes.
The cases of former employees hacking their way back into corporate networks in order to destroy data or steal confidential documents are relatively common.
Often enough companies make it easy for such people by failing to revoke their access codes when terminating their employment.
Back in July, we reported about the case of a senior database administrator, who hacked into the computer network of his former employer, a Houston retail electric utility provider, and deleted important data from its customer database.