A network administrator has locked up a multimillion dollar computer system for San Francisco that handles sensitive data and is refusing to give police the password, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday The new FiberWAN (Wide Area Network) handles city payroll files, jail bookings, law enforcement documents and official e-mail for San Francisco. The network is functioning but administrators have little or no access. Harris said it's unknown why Childs tampered with the system. The Chronicle, however, reported that Childs was disciplined recently for poor performance. Childs worked in the Department of Technology for San Francisco, making close to US$150,000 a year, the paper reported. City officials told the paper that Childs may have caused millions in damage while also rigging the network so that other third parties could monitor traffic, posing a huge data security risk. He is also alleged to have installed a tracing system to monitor communications related to his personnel case. http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/148427
That is insane. Really, this is a worst case scenario type deal. Even if/when they get the password, they've got an enormous amount of work to do in sweeping/securing the network.
With all the hacking tools out there and physical access to the servers, getting in really shouldn't be a problem if they have ANY experienced staff on board. I mean, they don't have ANY other Admins on the network? All the accounts are locked? Bad planning by management. Typical. Of course, this highlights the need for separation of responsibilities in an IT area. Too much power given to one individual can result in this sort of nightmare.
