Hacker Pleads Guilty in Clinic Case

Videotaped himself committing the crime
Hacker Pleads Guilty in Clinic Case
A former security guard at a Dallas medical office has pleaded guilty to two charges that he broke into computers and installed malicious code while working the night shift last year.

Jesse William McGraw worked under contract at North Central Medical Plaza, which houses surgery centers and medical offices. He made a video recording describing his actions and posted it on YouTube.

The government did not charge McGraw with illegally reviewing or modifying patient records.

McGraw faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 for each count. Sentencing is slated for Sept. 16, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

McGraw, who went by the moniker "Ghost Exodus" was a member of the hacking group known as Electronik Tribulation Army. Prosecutors say that in the spring of 2009, he broke into more than 14 computers, including one at a nursing station and another that controlled the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

His actions included: installing a program that gave him remote access to the computers, removing anti-virus software, and installing malicious code, known as a bot. McGraw admitted he intended to use the bot to launch a denial-of-service attack on the Web site of a rival hacker group, prosecutors say.

He was arrested in June 2009, just days before he planned to launch the attack, which he called "Devil's Day."


About the Author

Howard Anderson

Howard Anderson

Former News Editor, ISMG

Anderson was news editor of Information Security Media Group and founding editor of HealthcareInfoSecurity and DataBreachToday. He has more than 40 years of journalism experience, with a focus on healthcare information technology issues. Before launching HealthcareInfoSecurity, he served as founding editor of Health Data Management magazine, where he worked for 17 years, and he served in leadership roles at several other healthcare magazines and newspapers.




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