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Ex-UBS PaineWebber system administrator Roger Duronio has been accused of planting a logic bomb in the financial company's computers.
Duronio faces federal charges in his trial, including charges of securities fraud and computer sabotage, and could be looking at 30 years in jail, $1 million in fines, and restitution to UBS for its recovery expenses.
A lengthy jail term would essentially be a life sentence for the 63-year-old Duronio, who has been accused of planting a logic bomb in UBS that would cripple the company. A TechWeb report on the opening of the trial recounted opening statements made by both side in the case.
Federal prosecutors accused Duronio of creating the logic bomb from November 2001 through February 2002. The bomb had been designed to wipe out files on the main servers for UBS, 2,000 of them, and cripple the company.
Duronio planned to profit from that event as he quit the company in March 2002. The Department of Justice statement on his indictment said he purchased about $21,762 in put options, all due to expire on March 15, 2002. He quit his job on March 4th, anticipating the logic bomb's effects would cause a substantial drop in the UBS stock price.
The drop did not happen, and Duronio's options expired worthlessly.
A witness for the prosecution, former UBS IT manager Elvira Maria Rodriguez, described the scene as "chaos." During the downtime caused by the logic bomb, brokers could not access the UBS network or make trades, according to Rodriguez:
"Every branch was having problems," she said. "Every single broker was complaining. They couldn't log onto their desktops and [get to] their applications because the servers were down. The brokers might have been able to make some calls to friend brokers, but my understanding was that trading was not doable."
Duronio's attorney, Chris Adams, claimed the government had the wrong man, and that the code planted on the UBS system was probably planted as a prank by somebody else. He criticized the UBS network and alleged numerous flaws were present that allowed the "unsophisticated and sophomoric" code to be planted by a different person:
"UBS computer security had considerable holes," Adams told the jury. "There are flaws in the system that compromise the ability to determine what is and isn't true. Does the ability to walk around in the system undetected and masquerade as someone else affect your ability to say what has happened?"
As for the stock options Duronio purchased, Adams called them "a common investment practice" and not the nefarious betting scheme alleged by the prosecution.
About
the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer with WebProNews. |
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