Upset IT Manager Causes Server Chaos for Media Company
An IT manager from California was sent to prison for 356 days for the crime of hacking in to his ex-employers computer system, and releasing the company’s mail server to the public.
Steven Barnes was charged with computer intrusion charges against streaming media company Akimbo Systems (previously known as Blue Falcon Networks). Mr Barnes worked at the company as its IT manager from September 2002, until he was sacked in April 2003.
In a grovelling letter to the judge presiding over the case, Barnes claimed that pain killers for his bad back had relapsed his addiction to alcohol and cocaine, which was why the company had to give him the boot.
Barnes pleaded guilty to hacking in the company’s systems, not once but twice on September 30th, and October 1st, 2003.
On his first illegal intrusion to the company, Barnes said he changed the company’s mail server into an open mail server, which allowed anyone to be able to send mail to it. The company’s servers were clogged up with spam messages rapidly, causing the company’s traffic to be blacklisted and shutting down employee communications internally and externally. He also took it upon himself to delete the company’s Microsoft Exchange email database and the mail server’s core boot files.
After his initial attack, Barnes decided to cause some more damage to the company. He entered the mail servers again and changed the domain name, halting any outside email communication. He then deleted the company’s mail database again, and removed the email server from the domain group. He then deleted the server’s core boot files once more.
The letter to the judge contained Barnes’ supposed motivation for causing the server chaos. He claimed that one of the company’s employees Robert Hammer, and hs son arrived at Barnes’ front door wielding a baseball bat. Ordering him not to move the pair allegedly took all of Barnes’ computers, and made him sign his dismissal paperwork.
Six months after this, Barnes heard that the company had moved its headquarters. He was curious to see if the company had also moved its servers, which is when he tried to connect, and succeeded.
“To my complete disbelief, I soon realized they did move their servers and they had no firewall and the passwords were not even changed!” he wrote.
Barnes was sentenced on Thursday in San Francisco, where he agreed to pay $54,006 in restitution. He starts his prison sentence in January.
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