Former TSA employee sentenced for hacking agency’s databases

A former TSA worker has been found guilty and has been sentenced to two years in prison and a $60,587.07 fine to be payed to the TSA.

He was accused of tampering with the agency’s databases and trying to inject malicious code into a server containing the Terrorist Screening Database.

The 46-year old Douglas James Duchak was employed as a data analyst at TSA’s Colorado Springs Operations Center for over 5 years. But, when he was informed that his employment would be terminated, he decided to wreak some havoc before he left.

InformationWeek reports that he “accessed a sensitive database and deleted instructional code necessary to format information received in connection with the arrest-warrant database.”

He also injected unauthorized code in a server on which data from the the U.S. Marshal’s Service Warrant Information Network was stored, and tried to inject malicious code on another server.

If that code had been executed, it could have created a situation threatening national security, the Department of Justice claimed.