Man charged with hacking San Francisco employer, after being fired for porn on work computer

SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area gentleman has been indicted on charges of allegedly resulting in $220,000 in problems to his former employer, a financial institution, immediately after remaining fired for allegedly getting pornography on his do the job personal computer.

Miklos “Daniel” Brody, 37, was indicted this month on fees of deliberately harmful a secured personal computer and obtaining facts from a shielded computer. He was originally charged past yr, but details of the alleged crimes were being saved underneath seal right up until a short while ago.

The criminal complaint, filed in March 2021, states Brody denied knowingly keeping or watching pornography on his get the job done laptop or computer and later on informed a previous colleague he thought the firing was “harsh and cruel” specifically provided the coronavirus pandemic. He also denied hacking his employer’s laptop or computer in the times right after his termination.

Brody’s preliminary courtroom visual appeal last year saw him introduced on an unsecured $25,000 bond. Through the hearing, he requested U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim to carefully reveal the courtroom approach to him, asking if he could push close to San Francisco or work from property when on pretrial release. He also pleaded to be able to use his cellphone, declaring he was “blind” devoid of it.

“I’m nevertheless obtaining the hang of this. I’m not a felony,” Brody claimed.

The legal criticism alleges that in March 2020, Brody was fired from his task as a cloud engineer at the First Republic Financial institution in San Francisco after the business allegedly found evidence that USB drives containing pornography files experienced been plugged into his function computer. Brody said he got the USB drives from a mate and that he considered they contained the film “The Matrix” and he was attempting to view it even though he was out ill.

After his firing, Brody failed to return his get the job done laptop, logged into the company’s laptop technique, and “began managing scripts to delete code and injury the application infrastructure,” the grievance alleges. The indictment alleges he emailed himself a Very first Republic Financial institution code worthy of much more than $5,000.

In an electronic mail with a colleague, Brody denied he’d carried out nearly anything poor after his firing and lambasted his previous employer, the criticism claims.

“You fellas and frankly FRB left me in a fiscal hardship condition in the middle of the corona virus outbreak with this unexpected termination and no severance package,” he allegedly wrote. “In my feeling this is specifically severe and cruel specified my ~2 several years of service and tough operate with excellent religion and fantastic efficiency. Plugging in a USB and making an attempt to view a motion picture when someone’s sick must be no grounds for this cure.”

4 days soon after the alleged hacking, Brody documented that his get the job done computer system and various other merchandise have been stolen. The indictment alleges some of those people own merchandise had been later identified when authorities searched his dwelling.

Brody has pleaded not responsible and his next court docket look, a status conference, has been established for Could 5, courtroom documents exhibit.