IT Technician Jailed For Revenge Attack After Being Fired

An IT technician has been jailed for revenge cyber attacks on a school and IT firm after his employer sacked him. 

Adam Georgeson's attack on Welland Park Academy in Leicestershire caused some pupils to lose coursework and parents to lose irreplaceable family photos.

Georgeson carried out a "spiteful revenge" attack on a Market Harborough secondary school affecting over 1,000 students and he has now been jailed for 21 months.

The school's network was offline for 10 days and staff worked long overtime hours without payment to rectify the problems, with 14 staff members unable to resume working remotely for nearly four months. It also stopped remote learning for four days, when pupils were reliant on this due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Julie McBrearty, principal of Welland Park Academy, said she believed the sentence was appropriate. "It cost the school £15,000 to repair the damage caused by the cyber attack, although you cannot put a cost on lost learning," she said. "This sentence will make it clear that this criminal activity has significant consequences for both victims and perpetrator."

Leicester Crown Court heard Georgeson, started working at the school in Market Harborough as an apprentice in December 2016, however, he did not tell the school he had two convictions for fraud, and was dismissed in February 2017 after they found out. He later got a job with a local IT and telecoms firm inand was working for that firm when he launched the cyber attack on the school in January 2021, using his home computer. 

Leicestershire Police's cyber crime team, was able to link the attack to Georgeson by his Internet Protocol (IP) address.

Georgeson was able to remotely access the school's servers and wipe data from them, as well as wiping data from the computers of parents and pupils who were accessing the school's system remotely. Georgeson was arrested and told police he started the attack because he was "bored" and "curious". 

Georgeson admitted two counts of unauthorised acts with intent to impair operation of or prevent access to a computer. He pleaded guilty to the offences on the basis he did not know the computers of parents and pupils attached remotely to the school network would also be wiped.

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