«Petty» hooliganism for $200,000: IT specialist received 7 months in prison for revenge on his employer

In modern business, digital security is becoming as important as financial stability or reputation. One incident, even by a «employee, can cause serious losses. This is exactly what happened in the UK, where a suspended IT employee decided to take revenge on his employer — and is now in jail.

A resident of West Yorkshire, Mohammed Umar Taj, immediately after being suspended from work in July 2022, made unauthorized access to the company’s internal systems. According to the police, he did not just access the systems, but did a lot of damage. For example, he changed logins, disrupted the operation of multi-factor authentication systems, and effectively paralyzed some business processes. The attack lasted for two days.

According to the company’s own estimates, the business lost at least $200,000 due to Taj’s actions. The reason was not only direct business disruptions but also reputational losses, as the incident affected not only offices in the UK but also customers in Germany and Bahrain.

Last week, 31-year-old Taj appeared in court in Leeds. He pleaded guilty to deliberately interfering with a computer system and blocking access to it. The court sentenced him to 7 months and 14 days in prison.

This story is another serious reminder of how vulnerable companies can be to insider threats. As Detective Lindsay Brants of the West Yorkshire Police Cyber Team noted, «network security — is not just about preventing data loss and cyber attacks. It is also a matter of customer and partner trust».

The conclusion is obvious: every company should have clear protocols in place in case of dismissal or suspension of an employee, especially if it is an IT specialist with wide access to key systems. Because one keystroke can be very expensive.

This is not the first attempt by an IT specialist to hack an employer. Previously IT specialist hacked a company and tried to blackmail it for $750 thousand. Otherwise Megogo’s IT specialist was sentenced to a year in prisonas he tried to travel abroad with a «fake» unsuitability certificate.

Source: tomshardware