A disgruntled system administrator was sentenced to 34 months in prison after planting malware which cost his formal employer $1.1 million in losses.
On Feb. 4, 2016 Brian Johnson, 44, of Baton Rouge, La., pleaded guilty to hacking and willful damage charges after using a VPN connection to plant the malware within his former employer's systems and to alter industrial controls and to cause material spoilage, according to a DOJ press release.
The events took place in February 2014 after Johnson was terminated from his job at Georgia-Pacific, a pulp and paper company. Not long after Johnson established a VPN connection with the company's network to conduct a series of intrusion between February 14, 2014 and February 27, 2014 when authorities executed a federal search warrant leading to his arrest.
Johnson was sentenced on Feb. 15, 2016 and was ordered to pay back the cost of the damages and ordered to forfeit a variety of computer devices and accessories used in connection with his crime.
