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US tech worker arrested in city network hijack

Elinor Mills CNET News

Published: 16 Jul 2008 08:46 BST

A network administrator for the city of San Francisco has been arrested on charges of taking control of the city's computer network and locking administrators out, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Terry Childs, 43, was due to be arraigned on Tuesday after his arrest on Sunday. He remains in jail on $5m (£2.5m) bail.

Childs, who has worked for the city for five years, is accused of tampering with the new Fibre Wide Area Network after allegedly being disciplined for poor performance. He is accused of electronically spying on his supervisors and their attempt to fire him, according to authorities.

Officials told the newspaper they were making some headway into regaining access to the system, but they fear Childs has rigged a system to remotely destroy data.

Meanwhile, the network is up and running despite the fact administrators have limited or no access.

Credit: San Francisco IT worker arrested in hijacking of city network from CNET News