Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Security
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Former DuPont worker gets 18-month sentence for insider data thefts

Federal judge also orders scientist to pay $45,000 in fines and restitution

November 7, 2007 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - A former DuPont research scientist who admitted a year ago that he illegally accessed and downloaded confidential documents valued at close to $400 million while he worked at the company was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison.

A U.S. District Court judge in Wilmington, Del., also ordered Gary Min, the scientist, to pay a $30,000 fine and $14,500 in restitution to DuPont. The sentence is substantially less than the maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine that Min could have received.

Min, who also uses the first name Yonggang, pleaded guilty last November to stealing trade secrets from DuPont. His guilty plea became public in February, when the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware officially unsealed court documents relating to the case. Min originally was scheduled to be sentenced on March 29, but the sentencing was delayed until this week.

Robert Kravetz, an assistant U.S. attorney in Delaware, said Min's sentencing was put off while prosecutors held about 10 debriefing sessions with him in an effort to "get a handle on all of the DuPont technology that he had access to" and how much of the downloaded information had been transferred to systems given to Min by the company he joined after leaving DuPont.

Kravetz called Min's sentence fair and said that the case shows why it's important for companies to quickly contact law enforcement authorities when data breaches occur. "DuPont reached out at the outset, and that ensured that none of the technology [data] was disseminated," he said. "What DuPont did here was a really good job."

Federal agencies such as the FBI and the U.S. Department of Commerce have investigative tools at their disposal that companies typically don't have, Kravetz added. As a result, they're in a better position to resolve cases such as the one involving Min, he said.

The DuPont case highlighted the security dangers that organizations can face from trusted insiders. Min started working at DuPont in November 1995 and focused mainly on research involving a certain type of high-performance film. Then, in June 2005, he started talking with a U.K.-based company called Victrex PLC about possible job opportunities in Asia, according to court documents.

Min accepted a job with Victrex in October 2005 but didn't notify DuPont that he would be leaving until that December. Court records show that during the time he was in discussions with Victrex and for two months after he agreed to join that company, Min used his privileged access at DuPont to download about 22,000 document abstracts from DuPont's Electronic Data Library (EDL) system and to view approximately 16,700 full-text PDF files.



Jump to comments

Min

Additional Resources

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know
WHITE PAPER
Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.
Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009
WHITE PAPER
The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.
Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing
WHITE PAPER
Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

Gene Kim's Practical Steps to Achieve and Maintain NERC Compliance
Learn seven steps operators can take to meet IT configuration requirements set forth in the NERC-CIP standards.  

The Workday User Experience Video
Watch Workday's Creative Director, Scott Lietzke, discuss the business-centered design philosophy at Workday.

Business Process Framework Demo
Learn about Configurable Business Processes and Calculated Fields. Watch Now!

Manager Experience Demo
Go beyond self-service solutions to perform more effectively. Watch Now.


IT Jobs