Springs Man Gets Jail Following Hacking Attempt on TSA System

An erstwhile employee of Transportation Security Administration (TSA), proved guilty of installing malware onto a computer utilized for scanning airline passengers, has been punished with a 2-year imprisonment along with an order to hand over $60,000 to TSA as compensation for damages. WIRED THREAT LEVEL published this in news on January 12, 2011.

46-year-old Douglas James Duchak had been an examiner of data when working with TSA's CSOC (Colorado Springs Operations Center) since 2004. It was during late 2009 that he committed the hack and loaded the malicious software since he got a 2-week notice from the agency describing his termination from employment that lasted 5 years.

Said a spokesman of the Office of U.S. Attorney, the CSOC of TSA is accustomed with the government storing databases on PCs after getting them from the Service Warrant Information Network of the U.S Marshal and the Terrorist Screening Database of the federation. 9NEWS.com reported this on January 12, 2011.

Incidentally, the task assigned to Duchak involved maintaining the databases up-to-date whenever fresh information poured in. State the authorities that on October 22, 2009, James pushed his malware onto a Web-server at CSOC, which loaded Service Warrant Information Network's data. And then on October 23, 2009, he transmitted the malware onto another Web-server, which stored the Terrorist Screening Database.

Owing to this malware, TSA's computer would have been crippled on November 3, 2009 when an important file on it was overwritten. Consequently, the computer would have failed in its task of inspecting persons provided access to the airports' secure places, as well as to various types of sensitive information. However, other workers discovered the malware on the computer prior to it managing in installing its payload.

Duchak, according to federal prosecutors, failed in his malicious act of infecting the PC with a virus; however, had he managed to do so it'd have destructed a computer that the U.S. government utilized for augmenting national security, the spokesman said. 9NEWS.com reported this.

Meanwhile, alongside the jail sentence, Duchak has been ordered to go through a 3-year probation period as well as a treatment of his mental health.

Related article: Supermarket Hack Puts 4.2 Million Customer Accounts at Risk

» SPAMfighter News - 1/22/2011