A former software developer, Davis Lu, aged 55, has been sentenced to four years in prison for sabotaging his former employer’s network after departing from the company. Lu was convicted of installing a “kill switch” on the network by embedding malicious code that would crash the servers if he were to be terminated.
Activation of the kill switch occurred when Lu’s employment was terminated, and his credentials were deactivated. This action triggered the kill switch, named “IsDLEnabledinAD,” which determined the status of Lu’s account in the company’s Active Directory. Consequently, thousands of employees were locked out of accessing the company’s systems.
The Justice Department, responsible for prosecuting the case, stated that the incident caused significant financial damage, estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lu was identified, in part, through his internet search history, which revealed searches related to escalating privileges, concealing processes, and swiftly deleting files.
