Jason Needham, a 45 year old from Tennessee, has been jailed after hacking his former employer in order to steal business information worth half a million dollars.

Needham worked at engineering & design firm Allen & Hoshall until 2013 when he left the company to start his own business. However, he discovered that he was still able to log into his former companies server.

His partner in the new consulting firm of repeatedly counseled his partner to stop hacking into Allen & Hoshall server. Even though his ex-employer changed their password to the server on a routine basis, Needham was still able to hack into it.

Needham made a mistake when he sent an unsolicited offer to one of Allen & Hoshall clients who recognized the verbiage and contacted the FBI.

Working on the tip, the FBI contacted Needham and seized his computer.

Needham told the court, “I never had a criminal intent. It was a habit, like checking in with an extended family.”

“I had a desire to maintain continuity of the projects I started at A&H. I can see now in hindsight that continuing to access their system could give someone a competitive advantage, but I never intended to use that to gain an advantage,” he said.

In court documents, Needham was found to have hacked A&H's server numerous times, downloading documents, AutoCAD schematics, job bids, and other intellectual property.

The stolen intellectual property was valued by authorities at $500,000. Needham was sentenced to 18 months, will be required to submit to two years of supervised release, forfeit his engineering license and pay restitution of $172,393.71 in damages.

Source: Bitdefender