Fired techie created virtual chaos at pharma company
- 17 August, 2011 09:14
- Comments
Logging in from a Smyrna, Georgia, McDonald's restaurant, a former employee of a U.S. pharmaceutical company was able to wipe out most of the company's computer infrastructure earlier this year.
Jason Cornish, 37, formerly an IT staffer at the U.S. subsidiary of Japanese drug-maker Shionogi, pleaded guilty Tuesday to computer intrusion charges in connection with the attack on Feb. 3, 2011. He wiped out 15 VMware host systems that were running e-mail, order tracking, financial and other services for the Florham Park, New Jersey, company.
"The Feb. 3 attack effectively froze Shionogi's operations for a number of days, leaving company employees unable to ship product, to cut checks, or even to communicate via e-mail," the U.S. Department of Justice said in court filings. Total cost to Shionogi: US$800,000.
Cornish had resigned from the company in July 2010 after getting into a dispute with management, but he had been kept on as a consultant for two more months.
Then, in September 2010, the drug-maker laid off Cornish and other employees, but it did a bad job of revoking passwords to the network. One employee, who was Cornish's friend and former boss, allegedly refused to hand over network passwords to company officials and eventually was fired because of this.
Using a Shionogi account, Cornish was able to log into the company's network from a public McDonald's Internet connection in February and fire up a vSphere VMware management console that he'd secretly installed on the company's network a few weeks earlier.
Using vSphere, he deleted 88 company servers from the VMware host systems, one by one.
Cornish was charged in July. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison when he's sentenced on Nov. 10. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Shionogi did not return messages seeking comment.
Robert McMillan covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @bobmcmillan. Robert's e-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com
Recommended
Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.
- Bookmark this page
- Share this article
- Got more on this story? Email CIO
- Follow CIO on twitter
- Reference Architectures for Virtualisation
- Securing the Promise of Virtualisation
- Top Words Used in Spear Phishing Attacks to Successfully Compromise Enterprise Networks and Steal Data
- The State of Cloud Based Security
- Leading Through Connections – Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study
-
Larry Page wants to see your medical records
-
Dual-Persona Smartphones Not a BYOD Panacea
-
After two-year hiatus, EFF accepts bitcoin donations again
-
CIOs struggle to deliver timely mobile business apps: survey
-
Spiceworks' free management software gets integrated MDM
-
Protecting Your Data, Intellectual Property, and Brand from Cyber Attacks
Enterprises and government agencies are under virtually constant attack today. It is clear that the cybercriminals, nation-states, and hacker activists waging these attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated and more effective in their efforts to steal and sabotage. Why are today’s security defenses failing? In this battle, your security teams are using outdated arsenal - download now to learn more. -
Best Practice in BYOD
The key trend affecting enterprise mobility today can be summarized in four letters: BYOD – Bring Your Own Device. As the number of end-users bringing devices into your organization grows, so does the need for an effective Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution. Learn how to manage devices across multiple platforms all from a single, centralised and unified management console. Download for more! -
NetApp FAS6240 Clustered SAN Champion of Champions
Storage systems today must match agility with diversified I/O performance to satisfy an enterprise’s changing needs. In their review, Silverton Consulting ranks the NetApp FAS6240 Clustered SAN, as an Enterprise OLTP “Champion of Champions.” Read the results of their benchmark testing and the features that impressed them the most.
Get exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis. 
