A 62-year-old man from Harrison City, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to prison for planting logic bombs in programs he created for German industrial giant Siemens.
David Tinley, a former contract employee at a Siemens facility in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to six months in prison and two years of supervised release, and he has been ordered to pay a $7,500 fine.
According to authorities, Tinley created some computer programs for Siemens and between 2014 and 2016 he planted logic bombs into those applications. The logic bombs, which are pieces of code that trigger malicious functions when specified conditions are met, were designed to cause the Siemens software to malfunction after a certain date.
Since Siemens could not figure out why the application was not working properly, the company was forced to call in Tinley and pay him to fix the issues.
Tinley pleaded guilty to intentionally damaging a protected computer in July, when the Justice Department announced that he was facing up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
According to Law360 (registration required), the programs referenced by prosecutors were actually spreadsheets that Siemens used to manage orders. The logic bombs were discovered by Siemens in May 2016, when Tinley could not personally fix the problems due to being out of town and he provided the password for unlocking the spreadsheets to Siemens staff.
Siemens is said to have paid tens of thousands of dollars investigating Tinley’s activities.
Related: Chinese Woman Sentenced to 8 Months for Trespass at Trump Resort: Report
Related: Russian Man Sentenced to Prison for Using Neverquest Trojan to Steal Money
Related: Ohio Gamer Sentenced to 15 Months Prison in ‘Swatting’ Case
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- Meta Awards $27,000 Bounty for 2FA Bypass Vulnerability
- Industry Reactions to Hive Ransomware Takedown: Feedback Friday
- US Reiterates $10 Million Reward Offer After Disruption of Hive Ransomware
- Hive Ransomware Operation Shut Down by Law Enforcement
- UK Gov Warns of Phishing Attacks Launched by Iranian, Russian Cyberspies
- Dozens of Cybersecurity Companies Announced Layoffs in Past Year
- Security Update for Chrome 109 Patches 6 Vulnerabilities
- New Open Source OT Security Tool Helps Address Impact of Upcoming Microsoft Patch
Latest News
- Russia-Linked APT29 Uses New Malware in Embassy Attacks
- Meta Awards $27,000 Bounty for 2FA Bypass Vulnerability
- The Effect of Cybersecurity Layoffs on Cybersecurity Recruitment
- Critical Vulnerability Impacts Over 120 Lexmark Printers
- BIND Updates Patch High-Severity, Remotely Exploitable DoS Flaws
- Industry Reactions to Hive Ransomware Takedown: Feedback Friday
- Microsoft Urges Customers to Patch Exchange Servers
- Iranian APT Leaks Data From Saudi Arabia Government Under New Persona
