Rogue IT worker gets seven months in prison over $200,000 digital rampage — technician changed all of his company's passwords after getting suspended

a year ago by cm0002 to c/sysadmin

Company claims $200,000 losses due to business disruption, plus reputational damage.

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Lucky_777 18 points a year ago

Suspended or fired. We usually jump on this pretty fast. You never know what people will do. Easy enough to just disable accounts. Weird.

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TaviRider 16 points a year ago

It’s usually harder to do for admins. They’re usually the ones who do the suspending.

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Passerby6497 12 points a year ago

The only way that works in practice is to either have a second admin who gets the order while the first is talking to their boss, or you have a non-technical person with a break glass account that can do it while the admin is in that meeting.

I've had to be the second admin on more than one occasion and it sucks to be the one disabling your coworker/friend when they get fired, but it's part of the job.

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HeyJoe 4 points a year ago

Thankfully, nothing like that has happened here, but we have a break glass account that only 2 people know of, and it's locked in a safe. Also, my place has gotten so good at firing people they know how and when to do it to minimize risk. Like end of day when they are all packed up, and if its a really high up person, top admins are contacted prior and held on standby to disable everything as soon as the word is given. This includes admins. If they are remote, they will normally lock them out of the laptop first and make sure access is gone before letting them know.

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shalafi 2 points a year ago

Been that guy. Didn't get word until the last second as my head was on the chopping block as well.

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