Attack wiped out 1200 of a company's 1500 Microsoft Office 365 accounts
Always revoke the access rights of former employees and contractors
A man has been sentenced to two years in a federal prison after wreaking an act of revenge against a company, deleting so many staff's user accounts that the firm had to shut down completely for two days.
Deepanshu Kher was working at an IT consulting firm in 2017 when it was hired by a firm in Carlsbad, California, to help with the migration to a Microsoft Office 365 environment.
Kher was sent to work at the company's Carlsbad's headquarters to assist with the migration, but after complaints about his work the consulting firm pulled him from the project in January 2018. By May, the consulting firm had fired Kher, and he was soon on his way home to Delhi in India.
So far, so harmless.
But Kher held a grudge, and was clearly unhappy about his dismissal, and seemingly blamed the Carlsbad firm for his change in fortunes.
And so it was that on August 8 2018, two months after his return to India, Kher hacked into the Carlsbad company's systems and erased over 1200 of its 1500 Office 365 user accounts.
According to the Department of Justice, Kher's actions impacted the bulk of the company's employees, and caused the entire company to completely shut down for two days:
"As the company’s Vice President of Information Technology (IT) explained, the impact was felt inside and outside the company. Employees’ accounts were deleted – they could not access their email, their contacts lists, their meeting calendars, their documents, corporate directories, video and audio conferences, and Virtual Teams environment necessary for them to perform their jobs. Outside the company, customers, vendors and consumers were unable to reach ..
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