Get Fired. Delete Colleague's Account. Go To Jail.

SierraPete writes "CNet reports that Thomas Millot, a former systems analyst for a major pharmaceutical company, has lost his appeal on a computer intrusion charge. Mr. Millot was convicted of unlawfully entering the system that he used to work on and deleting a colleague's account after his job was outsourced. Mr. Millot's attorneys argued that his actions did not amount to $5K in damage--the threshold for the crime he was convicted of. The court disagreed, saying that IBM had done over $20K in work to undo his handiwork." Update: 01/14 19:55 GMT by J : Typo corrected; turns out the word "not" is important...

Comments

Oh Please...

[GodLived]

If you're going to let someone go who holds high computer or network credentials, please make sure you disable or terminate their access IMMEDIATELY PRIOR to informing them of your decision. Failure to do so makes the outsourcee become an insider threat.

The best security policy - although it seems cruel - is to escort someone out of the building immediately after receiving their resignation, or informing them that they are being terminated - and simultaneously disable their tokens, badges, RFID devices, company credit cards, voicemail accounts.

Re:Oh Please...

[techno-vampire]

The best security policy - although it seems cruel - is to escort someone out of the building immediately after receiving their resignation, or informing them that they are being terminated - and simultaneously disable their tokens, badges, RFID devices, company credit cards, voicemail accounts.

Although I've never liked losing a job, I'd rather have that done than be allowed to wander out on my own. This way I have a witness that can testify that any damage done after I was terminated isn't my fault.

Last time I was let go, I told my manager that I was logged in and asked him to come over to my desk and log me out because I didn't even want to touch that computer again. He told me that he trusted me not to do anything foolish, but I still had him watch me log out, just to be safe.

Re:IBM ineptitude

[Rantastic]

what sort of incompetent morons are they employing?

Funny you should ask. I have had several recent jobs cleaning up after IBM consultants. I finally had the chance to find out what is going on. It goes like this: IBM keep their top talent hard at work on the big multli-million dollar contracts. For the rest, it is anyone they can get off the street.

I learned of this when I recently had a job interview with IBM. They had already signed a $2 million contract with a government agency to build a computational data center, but had no available staff to allocate to the contract. The interviewer was completely candid with me when I asked about why they would sign a contract they couldn't fulfill. He said it happens all the time and is standard operating procedure. They simply hire contractors as needed. I turned the job down.

Ready for the punchline? They hired a guy that I have worked with in the past. This guy has no prior experience working with the technology he will be deploying. He is a decent guy, but he will be figuring things out on the fly. He is the best they could do. He is being sent in as an expert consultant by IBM. Think he will bill more hours than someone with actual experience?

I recently asked a former customer of mine, who works IT for a large university, why people would hire IBM over a smaller company with more expertise. He said that as far as his boss is concerned, if you hire IBM and they screw something up, you are covered because you went with IBM. This same customer then went on to tell me how IBM completely botched a $1 million installation job at his university last year. They are in court over it.

If this guy had a good lawyer they should have audited all the work done by IBM and the qualifications of the people doing the work.