A former employee of an Ohio-based industrial power management company has been found guilty of sabotaging that company’s IT system with malicious computer code, including a “kill switch” that activated after his position was changed.
Davis Lu, 55, had worked as a senior software developer at Eaton Corp. in Beachwood, Ohio, since 2007 according to Cleveland.com. But in 2018, a “corporate realignment” reduced his responsibilities and system access, which led him to secretly sabotage the network.
“By Aug. 4, 2019, he introduced malicious code that caused system crashes and prevented user logins,” the Justice Department says.
Lu’s sabotage involved triggering the company’s IT systems to enter an “infinite loop,” resulting in server hangs and crashes. In addition, Lu installed a “kill switch” designed to lock out other employees the moment the company disabled his profile from the company’s active directory.
That happened on Sept. 9, 2019, after his job had been terminated, resulting in disruptions for thousands of users across the globe, federal investigators say. But according to a court document, it wasn’t hard for Eaton to figure out that Lu was to blame. Part of the sabotage was hosted on a development server to which only Lu had access. Meanwhile, the kill switch code was named “IsDLEnabledinAD”—which translates to “Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory.”
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“Additionally, on the day he was directed to turn in his company laptop, Lu deleted encrypted data,” the Justice Department says. “His internet search history revealed he had researched methods to escalate privileges, hide processes, and rapidly delete files, indicating an intent to obstruct efforts of his co-workers to resolve the system disruptions.”
Lu was originally charged in 2021. Following a lengthy court process, a federal jury found him guilty this week for causing damages to the protected computers. He now faces up to 10 years in prison.
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
