Ex-Hawaii IT exec gets probation for hijacking computer network

A previous information and facts engineering administrator with Finance Insurance Ltd. was sentenced to 3 several years of federal probation Monday following he admitted to illegally accessing the company’s network and locking out the staff members from core capabilities.

Federal prosecutors asked a decide to sentence Casey K. Umetsu Sr., 40, to a jail expression concerning 30 and 37 months in accordance with U.S. sentencing guidelines following his weeklong siege of the company’s laptop or computer network resulted in a reduction between $95,000 and $150,000.

Umetsu’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Community Defender Jacquelyn T. Esser, asked for two years’ probation.

Umetsu entered a plea of responsible to a solitary demand of intentional damage to a secured personal computer as portion of
a plea agreement with the governing administration. He confronted up
to 10 many years in prison and
a $250,000 great.

U.S. District Choose Jill A. Otake settled on a sentence of a few several years of federal probation and barred Umetsu from acquiring any get in touch with specifically or indirectly by third get-togethers with the president, vice president or the defendant’s former supervisor, recognized in court docket documents as “FK,” of Finance Insurance Ltd.

In a letter to Otake submitted Jan. 24, Umetsu wrote that he is “remorseful for the damage that was brought on to Finance Insurance plan, Finance Elements, its staff members and clients.”

“There were being a great deal of persons influenced. Confusion, anger, worry, stress and fret are some of the emotions or emotions that people today involved may well have knowledgeable. All those are things that we need a lot less of in our lives. I’m remorseful for the further operate prompted to all people associated and all of the un-required strain/tension that resulted. I am ashamed. There are no terms that can express the disgrace that is felt,” Umetsu wrote. “I acknowledge obligation for the damage that was completed. Desktops need to often be used for very good and not undesirable, regardless of the circumstance. There is no justification that could warrant any harm. No one particular compelled me to do everything and I acknowledge obligation for the harm that resulted.”

Assistant U.S. Legal professional Wayne A. Myers, who prosecuted the case for the governing administration, declined remark. A spokesperson for Finance Insurance policy Ltd. declined remark.

Umetsu resigned from Finance Insurance plan on Aug. 16, 2019, following an incident that concerned a “workers’ compensation claim and a lapse in insurance that resulted
in a disruption of health-related treatment” and a 2nd incident allegedly involving workplace sexual “harassment and bullying,” in accordance to a sentencing memo from Esser.

Umetsu was senior details technique technologist for Finance Insurance policies and was liable for an array of responsibilities, which include administering the laptop community, domain, internet site and laptop servers overseeing components and software updates working with outdoors vendors and assisting personnel with normal computer and technological know-how difficulties, according to
a plea arrangement filed
Sept. 28.

A day just after he remaining the organization, Umetsu logged on to the Finance Insurance policy Community Answers account, which would permit him to modify domain routing options and update get in touch with and payment information.

Utilizing an web relationship from his household in Honolulu, Umetsu accessed the web site of Network Alternatives and employed Finance Insurance’s exclusive “User ID” and password to log in to the portal.

Immediately after attaining access to the portal, “the defendant then made many unauthorized changes” to the Network Remedies account. Umetsu modified the the buyer organization identify from Finance Coverage
to “Honolulu Disposal
Company.”

He improved the shopper e-mail get in touch with to a Gmail account managed by him switched the client telephone range to his personalized cellphone amount transformed the password necessary to accessibility Finance
Insurance’s account as a result of the Community Remedies portal and altered the major call name to “Supah Dung.”

Umetsu altered the domain title program options for Finance Insurance’s area so that “incoming world-wide-web and email targeted visitors directed” to Finance Insurance’s area was misdirected from IP addresses affiliated with the business to IP addresses unaffiliated with the firm. This produced it so “would-be site visitors could not access” Finance Insurance’s internet site and corporation staff could not send out or receive electronic mail.

Umetsu also sent out bogus e-mail purportedly from “senior management” companywide and deleted all of the company’s Microsoft Office accounts.

When a business worker experimented with to use a personal electronic mail handle to get back command of the Community Alternatives platform, Umetsu initiated a dispute, locking all people out till
it could be settled.

Umetsu went so much as
“to recommend to his previous employer that he was not dependable for the assaults whilst simultaneously presenting to enable them detect the culprit and correct the incredibly problems he was causing,” in accordance to a sentencing memo authored by Myers.

Umetsu’s crime was, “regardless of whatsoever inspired it,” an incredibly “serious one particular that triggered a catastrophe for a advanced corporation that employs a lot of customers of the group and presents crucial providers to even much more,” wrote Myers.

“Over the class of the legal escapade, which spanned a whole week, the defendant had quite a few possibilities to neat off, reconsider his actions, and quit sabotaging his previous employer. But he did not,” wrote Myers. “Rather, he continued to invent, and then execute, new techniques of producing mayhem, quite a few of which he was only capable to have out properly since his former employer (and previous colleagues, who, incidentally, withstood the worst of the defendant’s actions) had positioned so considerably have confidence in in him.”