Man pleads guilty to damaging Verizon computers

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By Brian Sullivan

(IDG) -- A 32-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of intentionally damaging protected computers at a network support center owned by Verizon Communications, according to a plea agreement released this week by the U.S. attorney's office in Tampa, Fla. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Michael Whitt Ventimiglia, a former IT worker at GTE Corp., is scheduled to be sentenced within the next three months for deleting information stored on systems in the Tampa-based facility, said Steve Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for Central Florida. The incident took place last May, shortly before GTE merged with Bell Atlantic Corp. to form New York-based Verizon.

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Cole said Ventimiglia's actions resulted in more than $200,000 in damage at GTE's Network Service Support Center. The plea agreement states that the government won't oppose a lesser sentence than the maximum 10-year prison term, but it also notes that Ventimiglia could be required to pay reparations to Verizon for the damage he caused.

"We are not going to speculate on what the sentence should be," Cole said. "[But] the message should be put out there to people that the federal government takes this kind of crime very seriously. It is not a prank; it is not a joke."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald L. Hansen backed up that sentiment. "When you look at all the facts around this case, it makes it a pretty serious case," said Hansen, who also is the computer technology crimes coordinator for the U.S. attorney's Tampa office. "We would not like to see it happen again. Any information that can go out to the general public that people are being held accountable for their acts is very, very important."

Hansen said Ventimiglia, who currently is free on a $10,000 bond, used his ability to gain access to GTE's secure computers at about 3 a.m. last May 15. Once he had access, Hansen added, Ventimiglia began to erase data contained in the computers and entered a command that prevented anyone from stopping the destruction process.

Other IT workers at the GTE facility "couldn't stop it," Hansen said. "It wasn't that they didn't catch it -- it's that they could not stop the self-destruction of the material [once it had started]. This was definitely caused by someone familiar with the computer and the computer code."

Hansen and Cole said they didn't know what motivated the former GTE worker to tamper with the systems, and attempts to reach Ventimiglia and his attorney were unsuccessful. However, Verizon spokesman Bill Kula termed Ventimiglia "a rogue employee."

Because of his job, Ventimiglia had access "to a secure area, and he severely abused those privileges," Kula said. "Regrettably, a rogue employee committed a crime against the company, and we fired him. All the necessary steps were taken to protect our customers, and at no point in time was any of our customers' information jeopardized.

Computer crime analyst Ron Russ, CEO of R.L. Russ & Associates in Alvarado, Texas, said this kind of incident is particularly difficult to stop.

"It's not as uncommon as you think," said Russ, who often gives expert testimony in court cases involving IT crimes. "A lot of disgruntled employees will damage their employers' [systems]. And if they're good, it is relatively difficult to pinpoint who did it." Russ added that he hopes Ventimiglia will get the maximum sentence in order to send a message to other potential perpetrators of such crimes.

Ventimiglia was suspected from the start and was questioned almost immediately by GTE officials and the FBI, Hansen said. Before Ventimiglia can be sentenced, Hansen added, a probation report has to be drawn up for the judge. Preparing that report may take several weeks, so a specific date for the sentencing hasn't been set yet.

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