Here’s your Tech Brief update: A reminder of why insider threats remain one of the most dangerous—and preventable—risks in cybersecurity.
In the UK, a 31-year-old IT worker named Mohammed Umar Taj has been sentenced to just over seven months in prison for deliberately sabotaging his former employer’s network after being suspended from his role.
After being let go in July 2022, Taj’s employer failed to revoke his credentials immediately and within hours, he used that access to change employee login credentials and tamper with the company’s multifactor authentication system.
A day later, he escalated the sabotage—disrupting access for employees and clients not only in the UK, but also in Germany and Bahrain.
The damage was estimated to £200,000, or around $275,000 USD, in business and reputational losses.
Taj pleaded guilty to unauthorized access with intent to impair operations—and is now serving his sentence.
So what does this all mean?
Access is power—This wasn’t the result of some elite hacker group or a zero-day exploit. It was a former employee who never had his access revoked.
Whether you’re a startup in Sydney, a hospital in Toronto, or a manufacturer in Munich—the threat is the same:
Access that lingers is access that can be weaponized.
This case is a reminder that cyber resilience isn’t just about firewalls and detection tools—it’s about governance.
It’s about knowing who has access, why they have it, and making sure they lose it the moment they leave.
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British IT worker sentenced to seven months after trashing company network
