Rogue techie pleads guilty in 862K employer attack The Register

pAn Ohio IT contractor has pleaded guilty to breaking into his former employers systems and causing nearly 1 million worth of damage after being firedppMaxwell Schultz 35 impersonated another contractor to gain access to the companys network after his credentials were revokedppAnnouncing the news US attorney Nicholas J Ganjei did not specify the company in question which is typical in these malicious insider cases although local media reported it to be Houstonbased Waste Management The Register contacted Waste Management for clarity but it did not respondppThe attack took place on May 14 2021 and saw Schultz use the credentials to reset approximately 2500 passwords at the affected organizationppThis meant thousands of employees and contractors across the US were unable to access the company networkppSchultz admitted to running a PowerShell script to reset the passwords searching for ways to delete system logs to cover his tracks in some cases succeeding and clearing PowerShell window events according to the Department of JusticeppProsecutors said the attack caused more than 862000 worth of damage related to employee downtime a disrupted customer service function and costs related to the remediation of the intrusionppSchultz is set to be sentenced on Jan 30 2026 and faces up to ten years in prison and a potential maximum fine of 250000ppIf it was Waste Management the largest US garbage company is not alone in its woes Malicious insiders sabotaging IT systems is a common tale and one that continues to be told in 2025ppBe it Coinbase or FinWise in the US the spate of rogue North Korean IT workers targeting Western organizations local authorities or even GCHQ in the UK insider threats continue to wreak havoc across all types of organizations and thats just in 2025ppIn previous years weve covered stories about COOs hacking hospitals to drum up business a former IT admin locking Canadian Pacific Railway out of its network switches a senior dev activating a kill switch and a security analyst attempting to redirect ransom payments to his own pocket ppSend us newsppThe Register Biting the hand that feeds ITpp
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