Unhappy engineer locks San Francisco out of city network
A 43 year-old computer engineer by the name of Terry Childs has brought San Francisco to its knees by locking the city out of its main network.
The network stores information such as the payroll details of city employees, law enforcement documentation, countless e-mails and even the local jail records. None of it can currently be accessed though, because Mr Childs, employee of the Department of Technology, is keeping the password to himself as he sits in jail this week.
His motives for locking everyone out of the system are not totally clear. It may be tied in to recent disciplinary measures taken against him and management attempting to fire him. The lock out may be Mr Child’s way of stopping them from actually getting rid of him, but has now landed him in more trouble.
His modifications to the system are not limited to just locking everyone out and he started tampering as of June 20, according to officials involved in the case. He is also thought to have been listening in on communications between staff and authorities to find out what they were trying to do with him.
An attempt is currently being made to crack his password and regain access. The chief administrative officer for the Department of Technology, Ron Vinson, has assured everyone that the system is running without problems and is fully functional. The only problem being they can’t gain access to it.
Read more at SFGate.com
Matthew’s Opinion
Well if this teaches us anything, its don’t let any one person get into a position where they have that much power.
It shouldn’t be possible for an individual to lock a city out of the network that runs its day-to-day activities. Mr Childs is either very clever and has bypassed a number of safeguards, or the system really was poorly implemented from a security and management perspective.
I’m not sure what he was thinking when he did this. If it was to act as insurance against being fired it has really backfired. He will now surely face criminal charges and a damages claim; and will likely never work in the tech industry again.
Tags: technology, wi-fi, TV, gear
