JULY 15, 2008 | 11:55 AM -- Right now, San Francisco computer experts are frantically trying to crack an exclusive administrative password of one of their former computer engineers who’s sitting in jail for basically holding the city’s new multimillion-dollar network hostage.
Terry Childs, 43, is cooling his heels in the slammer on charges of computer tampering for configuring sole admin control of the city’s new FiberWAN network so that no other IT officials can have administrative rights to the network, which contains email, payroll, law enforcement, and inmate booking files' apps and data, according to a published report.
Childs apparently gave some passwords to police that didn’t work, and refused to give up his magic credentials when they threatened to arrest him. Seems he set up the password lockout to ensure he didn’t get fired after he was cited for poor performance on the job.
Now the report doesn’t contain all the technical details of how Childs pulled this off (and why no one can reverse it), but it does send chills down your spine when you think of a disgruntled IT guy effectively swallowing the key to the network and willing to go to jail for it. He got even, and he apparently thinks blackmail will get him out of trouble. Or maybe he’s willing to throw it all away just to make his point. Who knows.
His actions could cost the city millions of dollars when all is said and done, but an even bigger fear is that he may have set up a logic bomb of sorts to destroy sensitive documents, or may even have an accomplice finishing off his dirty work. No sign of that so far, but the guy did set up a monitoring tool to track what other administrators were doing or saying about his personnel case, according to the report.
But officials say the network so far has been humming along just fine without admin access by the city. Kind of like a train without a conductor, but hey, it’s moving along, right? Besides being a nerve-wracking race to regain control of the network, it’s also a terribly embarrassing breach of the city’s network and systems.
via Dark Reading
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