Thames Valley, United Kingdom — A British Man, who was fired from his job, got back at his former employers by deleting their Amazon Web Services (AWS) Server Infrastructure. The man stole or “borrowed” a former co-workers Username and Password and then went to town deleting and destroying his former employers Servers.
According to a Press Release by Police in the UK, Steffan Needham, aged 36, of Bury, Greater Manchester, was jailed for two years at Reading Crown Court following a nine day trial. Following a Thames Valley Police investigation, a man has been sentenced for cyber crime offences.
He plead not guilty to a charge of Computer Misuse. Unfortunately the evidence was stacked against him. Needham was found guilty and convicted at the end of January.
Needham was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Reading Crown Court on March 1st this year.
The charges relate to incidents on May 17th and 18th, 2016, when Needham accessed servers of his former employer and deleted 23 servers of data, which related to clients of the company.
Causes Over $650K Loss
Needham used stolen credentials from a fellow employee. His actions caused an estimated loss of £500,000 to the company. This amount translates into Rougly $659,739.00 USD. The company was never able to retrieve the deleted data.
The company is based in Maidenhead which is in Berkshire County and is about 21 Miles West of London, England.
Investigating officer Detective Constable Giles Murphy, of the Cyber Crime team at Loddon Valley police station, said: “This sentence demonstrates the seriousness of this case, which was aggravated by Needham seeking revenge.
“His actions, although just a matter of clicks on a computer, resulted in major financial loss to the company concerned, and people lost their jobs.
“We hope this serves as a warning to those who may be involved in cyber crime.
“We would like to remind companies to ensure that log in details of former employees are no longer accessible once they have parted ways.”
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