Home Depot’s former security architect had history of techno-sabotage

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/09/home-depots-former-security-architect-had-history-of-techno-sabotage/

By Sean Gallagher
Ars Technica
Sept 22 2014

When Home Depot suffered a breach of transaction data that exposed as many 
as 52 million credit card transactions earlier this year, the company 
reportedly suffered from lax computer and network security measures for 
years. Apparently, the company wasn’t helped much by its selection of a 
security architect either. Ricky Joe Mitchell was hired by Home Depot in 
2012, and in March of 2013, he was promoted to the position of Senior 
Architect for IT Security at Home Depot, in charge of the entire company’s 
security architecture. In May of 2014, Mitchell was convicted of 
sabotaging the network of his former employer.

When Mitchell learned he was going to be fired in June of 2012 from the 
oil and gas company EnerVest Operating, he “remotely accessed EnerVest’s 
computer systems and reset the company’s network servers to factory 
settings, essentially eliminating access to all the company’s data and 
applications for its eastern United States operations,” a Department of 
Justice spokesperson wrote in a release on his conviction. “Before his 
access to EnerVest’s offices could be terminated, Mitchell entered the 
office after business hours, disconnected critical pieces of…network 
equipment, and disabled the equipment’s cooling system.” As a result of 
his actions, the company permanently lost some of its data and spent 
hundreds of thousands of dollars repairing equipment and recovering 
historical data. It took a month to bring the company’s office back 
online, costing the company as much as $1 million in lost business.

[...]

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