UBS Employee Faces Sentence For Planting ‘Logic Bomb’

Roger Duronio, a former employee of 'UBS PaineWebber', faces an eight years imprisonment as announced on December 13 2006. He was charged for installing a computer "logic bomb" on the company networks and betting its stock value would fall. The prediction proved wrong when UBS stock remained unchanged following the computer attack, which cost Roger Duronio a loss of more than $23,000.

Duronio also has to pay $3.1 million as compensation to his former employer, 'UBS Financial Services Inc.,' belonging to Swiss banking giant 'UBS AG'. Duronio, 64 and a resident of Bogotá is under house arrest until things are ready to shift him to prison.

When Duronio quit his job in February 2002, he was a systems administrator. He had, several times, expressed dissatisfaction about his pay and bonuses.

Duronio worked at UBS for two years when he received a salary of $125,000. He was also expecting a bonus of $50,000 but got only $32,000. Thus, he resigned and made up his mind to take revenge on the bank. He created the 'logic bomb', which would erase all the files in the host server of the 'central data system' and then each server of the different branches. On March 4, 2002, about 2,000 servers shut down and 400 branch offices were affected. Backup systems failed to work and the files were wiped out.

'Assistant U.S. Attorney' V. Grady O'Malley, a prosecutor on the case said he hoped it would send a message to the people. He said if assigning the maximum punishment to the crime doesn't impart a message to people who are able to commit such crimes, they are not making the appropriate consideration. An insider can make an incalculable potential impact.

Duronio was reported guilty on July 19, 2006 for committing one each of securities and computer fraud. But he has consistently denied every accusation.

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie commented that Duronio's act of revenge and covet tried to cause financial loss to a company and profit for him. But he failed in both. The jury recognized this and the judge too, by imposing a sentence to the maximum applicable limit.

Related article: UPS Scam Virus Targets Former Pastor of First Baptist Church

» SPAMfighter News - 12/19/2006