May 4, 2010
IT man creates computer havoc
He was fined $40,000 for computer misuse.
By Elena Chong
A FORMER employee of a company who exploited and created havoc to its client's webservers was fined $40,000 on Tuesday for computer misuse.
Marulasankaran Saravanan, 40, who faced 22 charges, admitted to seven charges of knowingly causing a computer to perform a function to secure access without authority to data and causing unauthorised modifications to the contents of the computer.
The Indian national and Singapore permanent resident was working at Mediaconcepts as an IT administrator until he resigned last August.
The following month, he accessed Mediaconcepts' computer system without authority and modified the server's configurations and information. As a result, clients of the company - which specialised in website solutions for hospitality clients - could not access their websites.
Investigation showed that Saravanan took revenge and committed the offences as he was unhappy with the treatment he received from his former employer. He has since made partial restitution of $14,500 out of the $70,700 loss suffered by the company. Fifteen other charges were taken into consideration.
He could have been fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to two years for each count of illegal access; and fined up to $10,000 and/or jailed for up to three years for modifying the contents without authority.
