Disgruntled Employee Locks San Francisco Officials Out of Network

After receiving a poor work review, Terry Childs, a computer network administrator, created a password to give himself exclusive access to San Francisco’s computer network, leaving the city in a scramble to crack his access code. The network holds data on officials’ e-mails, city payroll files, confidential law enforcement documents and jail inmates’ bookings.

“Officials also said they feared that although Childs is in jail, he may have enabled a third party to access the system by telephone or other electronic device and order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents…

As part of his alleged sabotage, Childs engineered a tracing system to monitor what other administrators were saying and doing related to his personnel case, law enforcement officials said. “