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30 Months Imprisonment for Planting Logic Bomb

A former system administrator, Yung-Hsun Lin, of Medco Health Solutions sentenced to 30 months of prison by the federal judge on January 8, 2008 for embedding "logic bomb" on the computers of his company. The planted "logic bomb" had the capability to wipe out vital information that belonged to around 60 Million customers.

The sentence was heard at Newark by the US District Judge Jose Linares who said at the hearing that the "logic bomb" planted by Lin could have hurt people - for example, Lin's own aged father, who live on prescriptions to get through every day, reported nj.com on January 8, 2008.

Linares explained that the crime committed by Lin was well thought out and well-planned. But on the other hand, the Judge also confirmed that the defendant has the privilege to rectify his wrong deeds and lead a better life after g his punishment. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Newark, New Jersey, the sentence received by Lin is the longest ever term of federal imprisonment granted for an attempt to destroy computer systems.

Erez Liebermann, the Assistant US Attorney, said that hacking computers of a health solutions company is a unique case of fraud. Erez explained that in all other cases of hacking, the "logic bomb was planted to access the financial information from a company, but attacking human health systems is a serious issue altogether, reported Computerworld on January 8, 2008. According to Erez, the step like this is hte right way to tell the companies to report fraud and hacking cases immediately so that they can be dealt with more appropriately by criminal judiciary. The more companies will come forward to fight against these cases, the stricter the law will become against these culprits, taming them with the right method at the right time.

In addition to a 30 months prison, Lin has also been asked to pay a sum of $81,200 as compensation money to his previous employer, the Pharmacy benefit Manager of Medco Health Solutions Inc.

Medco servers contained software applications relating to clients' clinical analyses, rebates, billing and managed care processing. The unauthorized coding was found by another computer administrator in January 2005, authorities said.

Related article: “Loopholes did not cause online banking thefts”: ICBC

» SPAMfighter News - 1/22/2008

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