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Prison Time For Manager Who Hacked Ex-Employer's FTP Server, Email Account (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the guilty-as-charged dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: Jason Needham, 45, of Arlington, Tennessee was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release for hacking his former company's FTP server and the email account of one of his former colleagues. Needham did all the hacking after he left his former employer, Allen & Hoshall (A&H), a design and engineering firm for which he worked until 2013. Needham left to create his own company named HNA Engineering together with a business partner. HNA is also a design and engineering firm. According to court documents obtained by Bleeping Computer, between May 2014 and March 2016, Needham hacked into the email account of one of his former co-workers. From this account, the FBI says Needham took sensitive business information, company fee structures, marketing plans, project proposals, and lists of credentials for A&H's FTP server. A&H rotated its FTP credentials every six months, but Needham acquired new logins from his former colleague's email account.

7 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Hacking? by Nutria · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or "using a password you picked up while still at the firm"?

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  2. Amateur. You grab all of that before you leave. by SensitiveMale · · Score: 2

    Have to plan ahead.

  3. Re:Amateur. You grab all of that before you leave. by Nutria · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The kind of stuff he wanted gets stale very fast. That's why he had to keep "hacking".

    --
    "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  4. Re:Amateur. You grab all of that before you leave. by Billly+Gates · · Score: 2

    Have to plan ahead.

    And use a service account or root if it is unix naming it after something sounding technical and legit.

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    http://saveie6.com/
  5. Re:bleepingcomputer tells it like it is totes hax! by bws111 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Only the 'journalist' who wrote TFA used the word hacking. The actual court documents use the words 'accessed a computer without authorization'.

  6. Oh, Lordy, FTP needs to just die already by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    Guy shouldn't have accessed it without permission... although going into a former colleague's email seems like a bigger deal to me. He deserves whatever he gets.

    But, man, if they're running an FTP server in this day and age, this is likely not their only issue.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. Re:News for Nerds by Quirkz · · Score: 2

    "Idiot ... stole his previous company's data

    Technically it's not theft, it's copyright infringement.That's much worse.

    (Actually, I'm guessing there's some other term for accessing corporate secrets. Just couldn't resist the knee-jerk Slashdot correction.)

    --
    The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay