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Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., today announced the indictment of SAM CHIHLUNG YIN, 34, for accessing and tampering with the corporate computer network of Gucci America (“Gucci”), the Manhattan-based American affiliate of the Italian luxury goods retailer. YIN, who had been previously terminated by Gucci as a network engineer, used an account he secretly created during his tenure at Gucci to access and control the company’s computer system, shutting down some of its servers and networks, and deleting data from others. He is charged in a 50-count indictment with Computer Tampering, Identity Theft, Falsifying Business Records, Computer Trespass, Criminal Possession of Computer Related Material, Unlawful Duplication of Computer Related Material, and Unauthorized Use of a Computer.
“Computer hacking is not a game. It is a serious threat to corporate security that can have a devastating effect on personal privacy, jobs, and the ability of a business to function at all,” said District Attorney Vance. “This Office’s Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau is committed to preventing and prosecuting crimes such as the one charged in today’s indictment.”
According to documents filed in court, Gucci, whose American corporate headquarters are located on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, provides employees with remote access to its virtual private network (“VPN”) by attaching a USB-sized token to a computer. While employed as a network engineer, YIN secretly created a VPN token in the name of a fictional employee. After being fired by Gucci in May 2010 for unrelated reasons, YIN took the VPN token with him. In June 2010, YIN emailed members of the Gucci’s IT Department using the fictional identity and tricked them into activating his VPN token. In the months that followed, using the VPN token, YIN exploited his familiarity with Gucci’s network configuration and administrator-level passwords to gain nearly unfettered access to Gucci’s network. As a result, Gucci lost access to documents and e-mail for nearly 24 hours, while other documents and emails were deleted permanently. This intrusion cost Gucci more than $200,000 in diminished productivity, restoration and remediation measures, and other expenses.
On November 12, 2010, YIN accessed Gucci’s network through the VPN for a two-hour period. During that time, YIN deleted several virtual servers, shut down a storage area network, and deleted a disk containing the corporate mailboxes from an e-mail server. As a result, Gucci staff was unable to access any documents, files, or other materials saved anywhere on its network. Additionally, YIN’s destruction of data from the e-mail server cut off the e-mail access not only of corporate staff, but also of store managers across the country and the e-commerce sales team resulting in thousands of dollars in lost sales. Gucci’s IT staff was unable to restore system operations until the end of the business day, and the lingering effects of the intrusion continued to impose costs on the company in the weeks and months that followed.
Infosec India 