Disgruntled Worker Accused of Deleting $2.5M of Files

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What is funnier than a disgruntled worker deleting all the files belonging to her boss simply because she thought she was going to be fired? Finding out that she wasn’t going to be fire and she destroyed all that data for nothing. Thanks to Chad Valeu for the link.

Jefferson says Cooley accessed the company's server with her own account. And with a handful of mouse clicks and keystrokes, he says she deleted seven years' worth of architectural drawings.
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damn, well at least they got it back. that could really ruin a company though (2.5 million worth of drawings, ouch).
 
kring said:
Oddly, most small-medium companies don't backup. They might back a database up, but often don't have backups for user & shared files.
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Their loss. Even a backup onto a floppy or cd is better than nothing, especially for work like this.
 
Link to the story doesn't work. :( So I can't tell what they did or didn't have. Or what exactly happened.

I have to agree with others about backups. Every time I hear of some company losing data I always think the same thing. Where are their backups, even if they just backup data onto a cd every few months that is better than nothing. For a company like that with that much data, I think the few hundred for backup exec and the few thousand for a tape drive and a few tapes would be a well worth purchase.
 
and if a flood hit his building? he lost 2.5 million in drawings because he didnt have a backup? they deserve to be burned with stupid administrative practices like that.
 
This sounds like the script for some type of sit-com.

I like how the guy who owns the business finally realized he needed backups. For a company doing architectural drawings, how could they not have a backup. Simply amazing.
 
Odd, the link works now. Before it was just taking me to a page for comments. :confused:

I am glad to see that the owner now realizes that he needs backups, however as is often the cause it didn't occur till after something happened to make them need them.
 
I personally run the backups for a 100-person or so company. We're FDA regulated so we have to back our shiznit up or they could shut us down. I wonder if we would back up if we weren't required to by the regulations....
 
I did monthly work on a network of a 3 person CPA company, that did weekly backups of their files. When your company makes it money through digital means a backup is mandatory for anyone with half a brain.
 
I know my company (Panasonic) backs up stuff like mad. If we were to lose our data at my specific office, it would shut down and billions would be lost.
 
Oh damn, she had to go military style overwrite 010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101010110100100010101000010101101110110110010010100010100010101011101001010101011010001100101010001100101010001110101010111001010100000101011011101101100100101000010001100101010001110101
 
yeh i don't get how hard it is to delete a file, really. i have this program that effectively shreds files.

and no backups? retarded. after the extreme price of data recovery, i hope that company re-evaluates their security policies, but i kind of doubt it.
 
Backups? Undelete software? Data recovery programs (GetDataBack comes to mind)? Professional data recovery?

All of them surely cost less than $2.5 million.
 
I gotta admit to wanting to drop a little payback every so often, but i would never delete files or be malicious like that. worst case for me...i would definitely have some words for the person who fired me as i left, and let it go.

i am not surprised at the quick reactionary behavior though. people fire off angry and threatening emails all the time without thinking or regard for any consequences, and then to make matters worse; add money, potential job loss and a sense being wronged.

wonder how much she was getting paid working there? ...2.5 million is allot of payback :eek:
 
well i guess she's fired now. Kind of a self full filling prophecy.


DOH!!!:p
 
simpsons_nelson_haha2.jpg


Couldn't resist. :D
 
I am an I.T. director at an Architectural firm (oh the irony) and the fact that this was even able to be done is the fault of the I.T. director and or the company. My users can not delete files from any part of the network because of simple NTFS security and my domain policy. Wonder what type of file servers they are using ? We have 2003 server and active directory. No one but me can delete a single thing from our network. If that happened here I would lose my job.
 
I am just a computer programmer, not an IT or networking guy, but because I am "guy who knows computers" I also do the system/network maintenance for the Veterinary clinic that my wife works at.

No matter how much doom and gloom I try to scare them with, I can't convince them to purchase ANY sort of backup system at all. The reason? "meh... no one will be bothered to switch tapes/cds/whatever and so it will just go unused and be a waste of money."

LAME.
 
Her picture is hot...


:::Barf::: Shining reason why companies (hell, home users) need to deploy some type of backup. Never, NEVER underestimate the power of stupidity in groups of 1 or more.
 
If the loss of certain data would mean the loss of millions, or the closure of your company, you should have a backup! Holy crap!? Do people still have to be told this?

Hard drives die every day by the truck load. Back up your data! @#$@#$@!!!

(Guess what I do for a living...)
 
no backups = FAIL......... I don't care if your backup solution is a USB device hooked up at the end of the day and then locked in a safe, do something to protect that data......... $2.5M in data? And no one thought it needed to be backed up?
 
With all of the various online backup services available now, I'm surprised these small businesses don't use them. You don't have to worry about tape/CD/hdd swapping in these cases. But you do have to make sure the software is running correctly.

Anyone who works at a small biz as 'the IT guy' -- why aren't these simple-to-use online backup offerings more popular?

What would it take to get these small companies to start doing some kind of backups? ease of use?
 
turdhat said:
I am an I.T. director at an Architectural firm (oh the irony) and the fact that this was even able to be done is the fault of the I.T. director and or the company. My users can not delete files from any part of the network because of simple NTFS security and my domain policy. Wonder what type of file servers they are using ? We have 2003 server and active directory. No one but me can delete a single thing from our network. If that happened here I would lose my job.
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even more ironic if she held YOUR position at the firm in question.... ;)


Then again, you never know, this guy could collect a ton of insurance money off this deal too. Hmmm.
 
And here's the most sobering part: the owner of the architecture firm says Marie Cooley was not going to be fired


I am sure she is fired now... self fulfilling prophecy
 
I wonder how the boss reacted when he discovered that the files were missing. "So now I'll refer to this drawing here...umm, guys, where's our data?"

Backups, people. Backups. If you don't want to spend the time doing it then spend the money on an NAS drive for your network and an automatic backup script.
 
turdhat said:
I am an I.T. director at an Architectural firm (oh the irony) and the fact that this was even able to be done is the fault of the I.T. director and or the company. My users can not delete files from any part of the network because of simple NTFS security and my domain policy. Wonder what type of file servers they are using ? We have 2003 server and active directory. No one but me can delete a single thing from our network. If that happened here I would lose my job.
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sounds like a great idea to enforce better security policies. ;)

Seems pretty stupid for a company with such valuable data to not have any backups. If this was a medical related office, that women would have been SOL.
 
I've had three small companies lose their servers due to various reasons. They didn't care about backups until the inevitable happened. Now they swap out the backs religiously.
Most companies don't care or want to spend the money on a backup until they find out how much it costs to not have business run for just a day.
 
Not sure how this is "funny," Steve. A firm lost $2.5M.

HardOCP went bankrupt, ha ha ha, laugh riot. :rolleyes:
 
Burning_Monk said:
damn, well at least they got it back. that could really ruin a company though (2.5 million worth of drawings, ouch).
Click to expand...

I gotta agree with Ruckus here.

Ruckus said:
and if a flood hit his building? he lost 2.5 million in drawings because he didnt have a backup? they deserve to be burned with stupid administrative practices like that.
Click to expand...

Not having a backup is just asking to go out of business as you don't care. Hell at one of the architecture firms I do work with a lot of the people have their own backups of their things not counting the fact that the important files are on the server, on the backup nas, and on a lto tape.
 
AceGoober said:
Was it that time of the month for her? :confused:
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Being a woman in IT, I will try not to hate you for saying that. LOL! What is it with men thinking that all women turn into psychopathic monsters once a month? Most of us are normal. Most. :confused:

She may have a mental problem, though. When I did corporate support for a Fortune 100 company, I worked tandem with a truly insane woman She was fired, but on her way out, she changed all the locks on all the storage pods, went around after hours and cut all the wires on most of the patch panels in the engineering building, but not before she did a mass network deployment of some kind of virus (I can't remember now, these were the days of WinNT and Novell) out to the corporate intranet. She was freaking brilliant, but entirely looney.
 
Haha even if she was getting fired she shouldve just taken it like a wo(man) and moved on to a new job.
 
jmphx said:
With all of the various online backup services available now, I'm surprised these small businesses don't use them. You don't have to worry about tape/CD/hdd swapping in these cases. But you do have to make sure the software is running correctly.

Anyone who works at a small biz as 'the IT guy' -- why aren't these simple-to-use online backup offerings more popular?

What would it take to get these small companies to start doing some kind of backups? ease of use?
Click to expand...

As I have stated before on the forum. I myself would never trust any of those sites. There are too many questions. Who has access to your data? How do they store backups? Who has access to the backsups?.... I feel that there is too much of a risk of your data failing into the hands of people that should have it. I myself would never allow my companies data with all our customer data to go sit on some server that I have no control over access of. It could very well be that is a reason for others not using it. It could also be a lack of knowing about them.


squares said:
Haha even if she was getting fired she shouldve just taken it like a wo(man) and moved on to a new job.
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After thinking about it some. The funny thing about that is why was she even looking in the classified section at jobs unless she was looking for a new job already. So even if she was going to be replaced she was looking to leave anyway. Had it been the case that they were looking to replace her, it very well could have been that they knew she wanted to leave and were looking for a person to bring in as her replacement after she left. I've even seen some places go as far as having the old person train the new person in their job for a few weeks before leaving.
 
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