A recent case has highlighted that ransomware threats can sometimes come from within an organisation. Daniel Rhyne, a 57-year-old IT administrator from Kansas City, Missouri, has been accused of holding his own company hostage by locking down their systems and demanding a ransom to restore access.
The incident occurred in November last year when Rhyne was employed at an industrial company based in Somerset County, New Jersey. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Rhyne allegedly took control of the company’s network by resetting the passwords of network administrator accounts as well as those of hundreds of employees. He then proceeded to delete critical backups and locked out both servers and workstations, crippling the organisation’s operations.
An hour after initiating the attack, Rhyne allegedly sent an email to the company’s employees informing them of the situation and demanding a ransom in exchange for unlocking the systems. The FBI claims this was an attempt at extortion, with Rhyne threatening further damage if his demands were not met.
Rhyne’s actions were investigated by the FBI, and he has been charged with multiple counts, including extortion, intentional damage to a protected computer, and wire fraud. Should he be convicted of all charges, he faces up to 35 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, as reported by The Register.
Several pieces of evidence were gathered by the FBI to support their case against Rhyne. For instance, he allegedly used a tool known as PsPasswd, a Windows Sysinternals utility, to
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