Angry Man Nukes Singaporean IT Firm's 180 Servers After Getting Fired

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The Singaporean IT firm suffered damages amounting to SGD918,000 (RM3.19 million) after a former employee deleted 180 virtual servers in a fit of rage following his dismissal.

The disgruntled former employee was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail for unauthorised access to computer material, with an additional charge considered during sentencing, as reported by Channel News Asia.

The man allegedly used his previous access to the firm's quality assurance system to execute the breach.

After his termination in 2022, he reportedly used administrator login credentials to gain unauthorised entry into the system from January to March 2023. During this period, he purportedly developed and tested computer scripts to assess their effectiveness in deleting the firm's servers.

In March, he accessed the quality assurance system on 13 occasions, running a programmed script designed to delete each of the 180 servers sequentially.

Speaking to ITPro, Boris Cipot, senior security engineer at Synopsys Software Integrity Group, said that this incident should serve as a reminder for other companies to implement proper authentication systems.

"Usually, when thinking about cyber attacks and protection against them, we tend to focus on unknown attackers and closing the possibilities of how they could breach us from the outside. Meaning, no access without 'proper' authorisation," he said.

"The accounts and their access to resources must also be constantly monitored, and in case of irregularities, the responsible person or system needs to be alerted," he added.