A Houston man was sentenced to 27 months in prison for hacking into the Centerville Clinic computer system, disabling all administrative controls and using the health care facilities credit card to make purchases at Staples.
Brandon Coughlin, of Houston, Texas, had plead guilty in June to intentional damage to a protected computer and wire fraud. Court papers say Coughlin, 29, was hired on Jan 16, 2013, by Centerville Clinic as an in-house computer administrator, but resigned on February 4, 2013, at the request of the clinic. On September 18, 2013, Coughlin admitted to hacking into the computer system, disabling all administrative accounts needed to control the servers and deleted data, including patient health records. His actions caused about $60,000 in damage, a Department of Justice statement said.
In addition, Coughlin said he used Centerville's Staple's account to purchase online iPad Air tablets. This also entailed hacking into Centerville's email server to delete the purchase confirmation from Staples sent to the company's purchasing officer.
Coughlin was also ordered to pay $64,849.41 in restitution.
