An angry IT consultant who was sacked by his employer for 'below-par performance' has wiped out the servers belonging to online tech giant Amazon.
The accused, Steffan Needhanm , 35, from Atherton, Manchester, was charged with one count of unauthorised access to computer material and one count of unauthorised modification of computer material.
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According to the DailyMail, the jury at Reading Crown Court was told that Needham was released from his contract with digital marketing and software company Voova after a months trial due to his below-par performance.
Prosecutor Richard Moss told the court that Needham hacked into his colleague Any Gonzalez'a computer account and used the login 'Speedy' and began to change the account settings days after his dismissal.
After making those changes, Needham allegedly began to delete Voova online servers hosted by Amazon Web services.
"What has occurred is user Steffan Needham accessess Amazon Web Services for Voova, changed Mr. Gonzalez password and secured his user login 'Speed'", Moss told the court. "He has then terminated servers, checked the settings and logged out. They were done by the defendant, who used the Speedy login covering up that it was he deleting the servers."
Moss continued:
"One thing experts agree on is that security could have been better at Voova...there was no multi-factor authentication, a means of confirming the user ID which requires a user to verify their identification by something they know or possess.
"Experts agree that the user login accessed AWS Voova and the user login Speedy terminated servers. What they disagree on is whether the evidence shows it was the defendant - there are three key areas of dispute between experts"One, whether the termination of the services was deliberate... two, whether the same person carried out the action described on May 17 to 18 2016... and three, IP address 252. The prosecution say there is evidence this defendant was using this ID address."
Voova CEO, Mark Bond told the court that the harm Needham inflicted caused the company to loss thousands of pounds within a week, and as well led to the loss of huge contracts with different transport companies.
Needham was arrested in March 2017 while working with DevOpsConsulting.co.uk in Manchester, but denies the charges.