Former IT professional pleads guilty to sabotaging computer network of financial company

An information technology professional in Honolulu pled guilty today to sabotaging his former employer’s computer network as part of a scheme for a higher salary.

Casey Umetsu, 40, as part of his guilty plea in U.S. District Court, admitted to changing the online traffic of a Hawaii-based financial company that he had worked at shortly after he cut ties with the company, where he had worked from 2017-2019.

He admitted to using the company’s credentials to access a website it used to manage its internet domain. Umetsu changed the company’s configuration settings and made multiple changes, including misdirecting web and email traffic to computers that were not affiliated with the company.

Umetsu prolonged the outage by keeping the company locked out of the website.

He admitted that he made the changes to convince the company to hire him back for higher pay.

“Umetsu criminally abused the special access privileges given to him by his employer to disrupt its network operations for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Clare Connors in a statement. “Those who compromise the security of a computer network – whether government, business, or personal – will be investigated and prosecuted, including technology personnel whose access was granted by the victim.”

Umetsu can face up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 and up to three years of supervised release.