SINGAPORE: A former employee who hacked into the company’s computer systems and deleted 180 servers was given a jail sentence of two years and eight months on one charge of unauthorized access to computer material.
The rash actions of Kandula Nagaraju cost technology services company NCS S$917,832. Another charge was taken into consideration for his sentencing.
The 39-year-old Nagaraju, an Indian national, is said to have been “confused and upset” after being sacked due to his poor work performance.
He believed that he had performed well and “made good contributions” in his duties for NCS, according to a report in CNA.
Kandula was employed at NCS from November 2021 to November 2022 as part of a team of 20 people who managed its quality assurance computer system that tested new programs and software before they were launched.
One hundred and eighty virtual servers made up the system. Fortunately, no sensitive information was stored on the servers.
The ex-employee went back to India after he was fired from NCS.
On his laptop, he used the administrator login credentials to gain access to the system on six separate occasions between Jan 6 and 17, 2023, even though he was fully aware that he had been fired from his job and had no permission to do so.
By the following month, he was back in Singapore with a new employer but stayed with a roommate who worked at NCS. Kandula then used his roommate’s Wi-Fi to access the NCS system again.
On March 18 and 19, 2023, he used computer scripts he had written to delete NCS’ virtual servers one at a time. Kandula had unauthorized access to the servers 13 times in March.
When the company attempted to access the system on March 20, it discovered it could not do so and that the servers had been deleted.
NCS filed a police report on April 11, handing over to the authorities the IP addresses discovered during the internal investigations after the system became inaccessible.
The police seized Kandula’s laptop and discovered that he had carried out a Google search regarding scripts for deleting virtual servers. /TISG
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