Job Seeking Hacker Gets 30 Months In Prison

wiredmikey writes "A hacker who tried to land an IT job at Marriott by hacking into the company's computer systems, and then unwisely extorting the company into hiring him, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison. The hacker started his malicious quest to land a job at Marriott by sending an email to Marriott containing documents taken after hacking into Marriott servers to prove his claim. He then threatened to reveal confidential information he obtained if Marriott did not give him a job in the company's IT department. He was granted a job interview, but little did he know, Marriott worked with the U.S. Secret Service to create a fictitious Marriott employee for use by the Secret Service in an undercover operation to communicate with the hacker. He then was flown in for a face-to-face 'interview' where he admitted more and shared details of how he hacked in. He was then arrested and he pleaded guilty back in November 2011. Marriott claims the incident cost the company between $400,000 and $1 million in salaries, consultant expenses and other costs."

Comments

Good

[Viol8]

Blackmail is blackmail whatever method is used to carry it out. Thinking that you're some sort of "lee7" hacker doesn't change the rules. Besides which, this guy comes off as an arrogant moron anyway.

Re:Good

[hamburger lady]

clearly, this whole thing is obama's fault.

Re:Good

[Adriax]

I'm guessing Marriott's monetary claims are mostly "It's his fault we have to pay all this money, we wouldn't have to fix anything if he hadn't used those flaws to break in."
He still hacked and deserves what he got, but Marriott is just trying to shift the blame of their security flaws so investors don't point the blame at them.

Re:Good

[hrvatska]

The guy is a citizen of Hungary. He did the illegal intrusion and attempted blackmail while in Hungary. He was arrested when he arrived in the US for a 'job interview'. Hungary's economy is more fucked up than the US economy, and they did it all on their own.

Re:Good

[phantomfive]

He still hacked and deserves what he got, but Marriott is just trying to shift the blame of their security flaws so investors don't point the blame at them.

Why do you think this? I couldn't find anything related to it in the article. Do you have some preconceived idea of how companies should act, and then judge them without checking the evidence? That's a serious cognitive bias.

He was able to hack their systems by spear-phishing, sending trojans directly to specific employees. This isn't necessarily a security flaw of the system, but rather lack of training for users (who may not care and may not want to be trained).

Re:Good

[betterunixthanunix]

He was able to hack their systems by spear-phishing, sending trojans directly to specific employees. This isn't necessarily a security flaw of the system, but rather lack of training for users (who may not care and may not want to be trained).

Except that users are part of the system that is being attacked. As Bruce Schneier put it, only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people.

It is true that user training is hard. It is equally true that the system should be resilient to stupid users, just as it should be resilient to malicious users. Spear-phishing and trojans are just a way to get non-malicious users to behave maliciously, and the system should be designed to contain the damage that malicious users can cause. There are a variety of technical measures that can be taken to prevent malicious users from leaking information or otherwise violating the security of the system; a large company should be taking these sorts of measures.

Re:Good

[zwede]

It's "1337" hacker. Just sayin'.

And seriously, ... the incident cost the company between $400,000 and $1 million in salaries, consultant expenses and other costs. ???
That's got to be the craziest application of 'cop math' I've seen in a non-drug related case ever.

I guess you haven't seen the 'math' used in file sharing law suits then.

Re:Good

[betterunixthanunix]

I am not going to claim that malicious users can be prevented from doing any damage. All I am saying is that a malicious user's ability to do damage can be restricted in a well designed system. The entire point of MLS systems is to ensure that users cannot leak or alter sensitive information, beyond what is necessary for their job. "Inside jobs" are a problem that has been extensively worked on, and resilience to such attacks is not completely impossible. There are cryptographic approaches to dealing with potentially malicious parties within a given system, which can ensure that security is maintained even if some of the participants are corrupted.

We really do not have to throw our hands in the air and declare spear-phishing to be some kind of ultimate attack that cannot be defended against.

Re:Good

[EdIII]

Seriously?

Not allowing .exe files in emails drive you crazy? Especially when email was never truly designed for file transport in the first place?

Not allowing compressed file attachments that cannot be scanned drives you crazy?

Well tough cookies buddy. If you need to send files back and forth with a user on my network you can go through different channels, and whatever they are, you can bet that the file will be scanned and the user will not be allowed to install software. If you are trying to protect from being scanned or opened, you are already wrong to do so. The user has no basis or justification to need privacy (from the system) when exchanging information across email. Part of the data diode and behavioral analysis I mentioned.

None of what I said prevents normal file transfers needed in the course of business. Just executable files.

I hardly see how that is unreasonable.

If I wanted to go overboard and be unreasonable I would remove PDF attachments.

Re:Good

[Coeurderoy]

Well, mostly he was seriously stupid, he might have got a job if he would have shown the weaknesses, and offered to help them, making sure that if they didn't want him, he would just forget about it, or if they would be interested make at a latter time an intrusion test.
He should also make sure that he can explain how to pull documents out, but not actually do it.
That way he would not have to go to jail... (or at least very much lower the risk of...)

But nobody sane hires a blackmailer without immediately thinking about how to put the idiot in jail...

Re:Good

[EdIII]

If you were the IT guy at my company, I would complain to the CTO until I got an exception to your restriction. I don't care about your petty concerns when they get in the way of doing my job. Neither does anyone else.

Good fucking luck. I am the CTO.

Petty? Setting aside your childish attitude, your job does not come first. The company comes first. Without the company... you don't have a job.

You are part of the problem. Instead of trying to understand the "why" of a policy you actively undermine it with a blatant and flagrant attitude mixed with ignorance, shortsightedness, and selfishness.

As the CTO, I need to protect the integrity of the company. That means making sure that there exists policies, software, and infrastructure design to protect corporate assets. Part of corporate assets is data. Customers trust us with their medical records, insurance policies, financial information... I could go on.

Am I to tell a customer that we had 1,000,000 records leaked because you wanted to transfer around executable files and bitched and moaned along with a couple of other people till you got your way? Hardly sounds reasonable. In fact, it makes me look I just was not doing my job.

Funny how that works out huh? Everything I try to do to reasonably find a balance between use of the system and security of the system is seen as some sort of fascism by people like you and you actively bitch and moan to try to undermine it. Yet.... when something goes wrong.... well that's my fault. The particulars are not relevant, such as your behavior and participation, because I was just supposed to magically create a world where you have no restrictions and everything works in perfect safety.

Now instead of acting like a child, why don't you give me an actual reason why you need to send executables and protected, nested, compressed files around in email?

This whole conversation got started with you saying it was impossible to prevent data leakage and penetration, I then offered a reasonable response, at which point you said you would try to undermine it to your fullest extent. How much sense does that make?

Re:Good

[EdIII]

And yes, my docs are confidential and none of you IT monkeys should be able to read them ...

There is your first problem. Already there is no room for reasonable cooperation without mutual respect and understanding.

IT should be a 'business enabler'

WRONG, WRONG, AND WRONG.

I am not just "IT". I am the CTO.

Enabling you to do your job is only one part of my job, and not even the most important. I must prioritize my responsibilities. In order to keep the company safe and sound I have to reasonably find a balance between the use of a system and the security of a system. That is first and foremost. Figuring out how to make your life easier comes in second.

Do you really think there is a danger? Hackers targeting your company would simply send the latest 0-day, which your anti-virus wouldn't catch anyway.

Yes, Yes I do. Absolutely. Hackers would not just "send the latest 0-day". They will try social engineering, dropping flash drives in the parking lot, probing of Internet facing assets, email phishing attacks, etc.

How can their 0-day get through if all email attachments are locked down to document file types only, and those are inspected and have certain functionality removed?

I don't care about little Hitlers in IT that talk about staff as 'The user has no basis or justification to' ... WTF!

With respect, I get paid to decide the basis and justification for your actions.

Anything the user needs for business you should provide!

Wrong. Anything that the business needs, I need to find a reasonable solution that the user can work with while satisfying the primary needs for the business. Which is that reasonable balance between use and security I spoke of earlier. It's not Burger King, it's not what you want when you want it.

but instead of 'being reasonable' and blocking everything you should provide a solution to enable that user in secure file-sharing with people if there is a business need

I completely agree. Which is why I completely block email, especially on inbound, but have other means of secure document sharing between you and corporate clients. Which is important to note, I don't view the customers as your customers, but the company's customers.

In your case, which is not unusual, email is not the best and most secure method. A secured website that allows you to share very specific data with customers is best. We have vendors and service providers that have very strong data policies as well. They would never ever send a PDF via email. Secured PDFs are downloaded via a web portal with multiple user account credentials that I get to control via another management portal. I can then review all of it as part of my job.

I understand your need. My job is not fill your need the way you want. Why? Simply put, you ain't the CTO buddy. I am the CTO. When something goes wrong, it is my ass on the line, not specifically yours. If it is bad enough, like a huge data breach, your livelihood is affected along with countless others. That's a responsibility I would have to live with.

So that's why I carefully consider your needs. What is it you are trying to do? How can I make that the easiest way possible for you? How do I make it secure and satisfy our data security policies and the vendors? Multiple vendors? How do I make your life easier and more efficient?

At the end of day, believe or not, I exist to make your lives easier so you can be more productive, while also protecting the company to the best of my ability. It's not to be a dick and make your life hell for "funsies".

And yes, my docs are confidential and none of you IT monkeys should be able to read them ...

I'm going to touch on this twice beca

Re:Good

[EdIII]

With your attitude, you're right. You would not be working for my company.

Very simply that is because I am a very fair and reasonable CTO. When users (which includes you) get out of line and have no justifications for their actions that create liability for the company, when I provide efficient and workable alternatives, they get disciplinary action all the way up to being fired.

The reason why is that I am well respected by the people in my company from top to the bottom. I have always worked well with people to find solutions without endangering the company, or creating a hostile work environment between IT and the users.

You would not fit into our company. You cannot even give me:

1) A good reason why you need to send that type of data in email.
2) A cogent description of your needs for me to find a solution.

How can I begin to help when you refuse? You have no respect for my job, my responsibilities, or a willingness to participate in problem solving or conflict resolution.

You are the weakest link. Good bye.

Geez what a moron

[Weaselmancer]

I mean, if he had access to their network and wanted a job, he should have forged interview and approval emails.

Think outside the box, man.

Re:Geez what a moron

[Weaselmancer]

Actually I was thinking something similar. In a large enough company communication becomes a real problem. Departments don't really communicate much. If you were to study your target a while and figure out who everyone's superiors are and the like, all it would take is a well-crafted email from some higher-up that says "hey hire this guy" and the odds are the underling wouldn't go back to their boss and say "are you sure?" - they'd just start the paperwork. Large companies are dysfunctional that way. They kind of have to be. The more people in the company the less practical being well informed is.

Re:Geez what a moron

[snowgirl]

He could claim entrapment. There are articles every once in a while about some hacker that breaks into sombody's servers, and they're so impressed they recruit him right off.

You'd have to be an idiot to believe things like that, but it doesn't take a lot of brains to cause damage.

Except no one induced him into breaking the law. The very first contact that he had with Marriot contained proof that he had already committed a crime.

Entrapment only works when the originating idea for the crime came from a police officer, or an agent thereof. (If a cop tells a confidential informant to get a gang to rob a specific store, then that would be entrapment as well.)

Cost them $1Million

[Bradmont]

So how much of that $1 million in salaries was spent repairing the security holes, which they should have done anyway?

Re:Secret Service?

[PessimysticRaven]

Since Cybercrime/computer fraud falls under their jurisdiction. Since about 1983 or '84, I think.

How someone can be that smart in hacking..

[hcs_$reboot]

..and that stupid otherwise? The right move was to arrange an IT job interview with Marriott, and claim good security skills.
"I found a security hole in your systems and may help you to improve this, and your systems globally".

Re:How someone can be that smart in hacking..

[artor3]

You haven't met many computer nerds, have you?

Re:How someone can be that smart in hacking..

[Dogtanian]

..and that stupid otherwise? The right move was to arrange an IT job interview with Marriott, and claim good security skills. "I found a security hole in your systems and may help you to improve this, and your systems globally".

No, no, no, no, NO.

You absolutely do *not* do that. Some (reasonable) companies *will* be grateful that you informed them of a problem with their security. Others will get the wrong end of the stick- even if you found the hoed through innocent means- assume that you hacked or were trying to hack into their system, and act accordingly.

Others still won't care, but will be angry that their shortcomings have been exposed (either the organisation as a whole, or vested interests that hold sway within that organisation, e.g. the crappy IT guy who's just been made to look bad) and that they have to correct them. Under such circumstances you are in danger of them maliciously trying to punish you or get revenge in some manner.

You do *not* risk the second or third happening, regardless of whether informing the company would benefit them. Ideally you'd be able to, but this isn't an ideal world, and you do not put yourself at risk for a benefit that they might not perceive as such. At best, if you need to report this kind of thing, you do it anonymously and/or in a manner that makes it untraceable or at least such that you won't be at risk of retribution.

This is the problem with geeks not understanding that the world does not operate in the logical manner they'd like to think, of assuming that people will behave logically and of not factoring in personal politics, self-interest and inadvertantly standing on someone else's toes.

Re:How someone can be that smart in hacking..

[ranpel]

Someone can have skills and lack the maturity and wisdom to wield them easily enough. It's more of a willingness to engage in a clearly criminal endeavor with those skills that is relevant. He could just as easily have delivered his findings, suggest they shore up, wish them luck and maybe hint that he's looking for a new gig and if they find themselves in need of someone that can shore up then to feel free to drop a message on this anonymous drop box. Gaining access to information is one thing but using that information quite another. The option this guy chose not only exposed himself rather awkwardly but is one quite deserving of a good stint in jail.

Re:How someone can be that smart in hacking..

[Loosifur]

No moral or legal basis for being upset, huh?

"Hi, I noticed you'd left your front door unbolted, and your big-screen television is clearly visible from the street. Also, just to check, I climbed over your back fence and tried the back door, which you left unlocked. When I got inside and heard your dog barking I was a little worried, but it turns out he's really friendly. I've taken the liberty of writing up a list of suggestions for you to make your house more secure; it's taped on the front of your fridge. Incidentally, I just happen to sell alarm systems, if you're interested..."

This story needs more press.

[goodmanj]

The general public thinks of "hackers" as super geniuses. This gives actual smart people a bad reputation. We need more stories like this to show that the average computer cracker is at least as stupid as the average Joe.

Honestly, any janitor could tell you instantly why this plan is idiotic.

Let me show you my back door

[wdhowellsr]

I'm currently working a contract with Darden Restaurants, the largest full service retaurant company in the world, and as you can imagine they are very serious about security. During the meet and greet the head developer asked me if I had left any back doors at my previous contracts. I looked at him strange because the thought never even crossed my mind which is the difference between a hack and a professional.

After I replied, he told me a story about a programmer interviewing for a position at Darden who had very good qualifications. He was asked the same question and immediately said, "Let me show you my back door", and proceeded to log into a company web site and pull up their web site administration page. The programmer actually seemed shocked when told that there is no way Darden could hire him.

There is a fine line between genius and insanity but stupid is all by itself.

Re:Let me show you my back door

[wdhowellsr]

I know, that's exactly what I thought when the head developer told me that. But if you think about it, if you are the largest -- Insert Anything -- company in the world you are a target and if you have ever eaten at Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Long Horn Steak House, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze or Seasons 52 a single recipe or trade secret could be worth millions.

Olive Garden's Seafood Portofino with Minestrone Soup is without question the best recipe of it's type I have ever tasted, and don't get me started on the bread sticks.

Damn, now I'm hungry.

i'm trying to grasp the level of stupidity here

[circletimessquare]

"hi, i'm arnold, i stole your tv. would you like to hire me to put a lock on the bathroom window i broke into?"

i'm trying to put myself in the thinking here, and no... i just can't understand. i've reached my stupidity simulation threshold. i simply cannot understand a person this dumb

Re:$1 mil? Seriously?

[Score Whore]

Why do you think the damages are made up?

Once the notice comes to IT that they've had a break-in you've got an awful lot of work to do. Much more than just applying a security patch. You've got to figure out what happened and which systems were affected. Which means that even if you have a situation like this where the attacker tells you how they got in, you don't know if they are lying. So you have to do a security survey of every single system on your network to make sure there are no back doors, root kits, or altered data. Just reviewing could readily cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars per system. You may be facing multiple nuke-n-pave situations on your servers (may cost you $5,000 - $10,000/system.) Which means you will be losing data or will have to recreate data. If you have a centralized reservation system they may have to take that down in which case you are idling thousands of workers worldwide as well as losing business during the downtime. That's probably measured in thousands of dollars per minute in costs and losses. You've got to bring in your legal team and executive management so they can determine if non-IT related actions that need to be taken (offer your customers identity theft protection?) Who knows how much that is, but it could easily be north of $100,000. Probably you'll be bringing in security experts to review your policies, practices and implementation. A team of four at $250/hr/consultant and you are burning $40,000/week just in consultant fees. Those consultants will be working with your IT staff who will not be doing their normal work, so that's another $5,000 - $10,000/week.

$400,000 - $1,000,000 is an easy number for an IT organization to reach in a large company. A business the size of Marriott may well have a central IT staff numbering between 750 - 1000 people. If they have a particularly efficient team and are on the low end of staffing (750) and have good control of salary ($60,000/yr), they have annual staff costs over $56,000,000. Diverting 10% of those means $108,000/week.

Re:Secret Service?

[betterunixthanunix]

Moreover, their portrayal of the approach the secret service takes to civil liberties was on the ball. The secret service arrested Craig Neidorf for publishing a document that had been sent to him by someone else in the magazine he edited, Phrack. They also failed to recognize that non-corporations could operate communication services during their raids on bulletin board systems. They searched the backpacks of people at 2600 meetings in the early 90s, regardless of whether those people were suspects in any investigation and without obtaining any search or arrest warrants.

I guess referring to them as the SS would not be too far from the truth...

Re:$1 mil? Seriously?

[ScentCone]

I'm so tired of seeing these ridiculous and obviously made-up damages

Did you even bother to read the summary, let alone the article? They had a lot of work to do in interacting with the feds in advance of busting this guy in person (he was cracking/extorting from Hungary). This involved many employees, corporate lawyers, etc. You tie up those sorts of man-hours, including the time to gather and preserve an unknown until you're done pile of forensic information from a huge IT footprint at a company that size ... I'm surprised the cost wasn't higher.

What I'm tired of are people who are so vitriolically anti-business in their mindset that they won't even do the mental work of thinking something like this through, lest it take some of the fund out of Complaining About The Man.

Really?

[DRMShill]

Do you apply this logic to your own network? Actually let me rephrase that. Do you apply this logic to your own possessions, property and family? Do you believe burglary victims should share part of the blame because they didn't reinforce the glass windows(security flaws) in their homes?

Let's call a horse a horse here. This man was a criminal. He deserved what he got.

I'm not a hacker but...

[stealth_finger]

...wouldn't it be easier to hack in and put your self in the employee database, set up payroll or send an email from the proper account to the payroll section to sort it and then just turn up on Monday? Or better yet not and get paid anyway.

Re:$1 mil? Seriously?

[Shoten]

A team of four at $250/hr/consultant and you are burning $40,000/week just in consultant fees.

Actually, you came in way low on that. I've been one of those consultants, and you end up doing WAY more than a 40 hour week when cleaning up a major incident. The first engagement I did, we billed 100 hours each in the first 5 days, and indeed we were billed at $250/hr...for a grand total of an even $100,000 for just the first week. That was a decade ago; costs are higher now. This also didn't include travel or expenses, or any opportunity costs of delayed projects (there were many). We ended up having to go over the entire environment with a fine-toothed comb, discerning what may or may not have been owned. Anything in doubt got nuked and totally rebuilt (not recovered from backup) just like you said. Fortunately, they had good backups of their databases, so recovery of that data went just fine...but databases are the one thing that is least likely to be properly recovered from backup media, owing to the MUCH greater complexity of doing those backups right. I don't even know where to begin on determining the cost, if it turns out you lose a database instance as a result.

Re:How much does 30 months in jail cost us?

[dkf]

Ultimately it might have been cheaper just to give the guy a job.

Except that it's insane to employ a blackmailer as you can never ever trust them. Same with a fraudster. You've got to hire someone else to fix the problems, and in general the cost of punishment is regarded as permissible as part of the cost of a reasonable degree of social stability.