Man deleted 180 servers after sacked by NCS.

[EncourageSome1]

Fired employee hacked into company's computer system and deleted servers, causing it to lose S$918,000

The 39-year-old man, who was "confused and upset" after being fired, deleted 180 virtual servers from NCS' computer system.

Fired employee hacked into company's computer system and deleted servers, causing it to lose S$918,000
Kandula Nagaraju leaving the State Courts on May 13, 2024. (Photo: TODAY/Ooi Boon Keong)
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 Rachel Lim
Rachel Lim
11 Jun 2024 08:24PM (Updated: 11 Jun 2024 08:33PM)
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SINGAPORE: Upset that he was fired, an employee hacked into his former company's computer systems and deleted 180 virtual servers, costing them about S$918,000 (US$678,000).

Kandula Nagaraju, 39, was sentenced to two years and six months' jail on Monday (Jun 10) for one charge of unauthorised access to computer material. Another charge was taken into consideration for sentencing.

His contract with NCS was terminated in October 2022 due to poor work performance and his official last date of employment was Nov 16, 2022.

According to court documents, Kandula felt "confused and upset" when he was fired as he felt he had performed well and "made good contributions" to NCS during his employment.

After leaving NCS, he did not have another job in Singapore and returned to India.

WHAT HAPPENED

Between November 2021 and October 2022, Kandula was part of a 20-member team managing the quality assurance (QA) computer system at NCS.

NCS is a company that offers information communication and technology services. The system that Kandula's former team was managing was used to test new software and programs before launch.

It consisted of about 180 virtual servers, and no sensitive information was stored on them. 

After Kandula's contract was terminated and he arrived back in India, he used his laptop to gain unauthorised access to the system using the administrator login credentials. He did so on six occasions between Jan 6 and Jan 17, 2023.

In February that year, Kandula returned to Singapore after finding a new job. He rented a room with a former NCS colleague and used his Wi-Fi network to access NCS' system once on Feb 23, 2023.

During the unauthorised access in those two months, he wrote some computer scripts to test if they could be used on the system to delete the servers.

In March 2023, he accessed NCS' QA system 13 times. On Mar 18 and 19, he ran a programmed script to delete 180 virtual servers in the system. His script was written such that it would delete the servers one at a time.

The following day, the NCS team realised the system was inaccessible and tried to troubleshoot, but to no avail. They discovered that the servers had been deleted.

On Apr 11, 2023, a police report was made and several IP addresses uncovered by internal investigations were handed over to the police.

Kandula's laptop was seized by the police and the script used to carry out the deletions was found on it.

Investigations revealed that he had searched on Google for scripts to delete virtual servers, which he then used to code the script.

At all times, he was aware after his employment with NCS ended that he was not authorised to access the system. As a result of his actions, NCS suffered a loss of S$917,832.p

The fact he can easily hack in means sthg

He is sufficiently knowledgeable

Ncs security got sufficient loophole nv patch

180 servers means they nv continuous monitoring or zorgang that s why not found at first few moments but after 180 servers

If one server 100 tb ... how long does it Tk to delete one ?

I thought ncs is g linked ? Good siol all e gov linked stuff also anyhowly not protected

Delete jialat
If he hold ransom n ask for big $$ is wa piang eh

[default]

omg EDMW has changed... now the topic still there not locked

[Philipkee]

I was sharing on edmw that maybe it was a common admin ID and password cos there was no line "and he discovered he could still log on to the system"

[Philipkee]

Ok thread on edmw locked liao

[Eat-Drink-Man-Woman]

Thread still surviving over there.

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/the-man-who-was-confused-and-upset-after-his-contract-was-terminated-by-ncs-deleted-180-virtual-servers-from-his-former-companys-computer-system.7037420/

 Thread deleted

[Eat-Drink-Man-Woman]

This thread is also alive-6 pages
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/fired-employee-hacked-into-companys-computer-system-and-deleted-servers-causing-it-to-lose-s-918-000.7037414/

Thread locked

[chainsawman]

why the indian guy didn't run back to motherland after commit this funny crime?
now have to go jail for the stunt 

[GhostZM]

why the indian guy didn't run back to motherland after commit this funny crime?
now have to go jail for the stunt 

Because he thought he is well protected species..won't be punished for it.


CheerS!!!😉

[daryl76]

chao ceca

like what ppl said, all these chao ah neh is damn buay gan one

[Nevereatrice]

The fact he can easily hack in means sthg

He is sufficiently knowledgeable

Ncs security got sufficient loophole nv patch

180 servers means they nv continuous monitoring or zorgang that s why not found at first few moments but after 180 servers

If one server 100 tb ... how long does it Tk to delete one ?

I thought ncs is g linked ? Good siol all e gov linked stuff also anyhowly not protected

Delete jialat
If he hold ransom n ask for big $$ is wa piang eh

Yes but the question is is 9% gst really enough? Ncs lost about $900k due to this. I really hope they will review the amount to be raised

[Eat-Drink-Man-Woman]

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/is-it-a-hacking-incident-or-a-lapse.7037618/

[Nevereatrice]

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/is-it-a-hacking-incident-or-a-lapse.7037618/

Ncs govt entity. Could do no wrong

[peaceheart]

Ceca talent!!

And why is ncs security so lax? Ex employee still able to log in...

[peaceheart]

Ncs govt entity. Could do no wrong

Ncs same as ihis aka synapxe, no blame culture

Know of ppl working in Ncs then jump over to synapxe and just cruise along nia

[Nevereatrice]

Ceca talent!!

And why is ncs security so lax? Ex employee still able to log in...

How much his pay btw? Govt sign ceca to exploit these cheap labor?