Fired credit union employee deletes 21GB of internal data

A disgruntled former employee of a New York-based credit union wiped more than 21 gigabytes of data from the firm in an act of revenge.

Barile spent 40 minutes deleting files

Juliana Barile worked remotely at the credit union on a part-time basis, according to New York court documents.

During her spree of retribution, she deleted more than 20,000 files, 3,500 directories, and 21.3GB of data in the institution’s shared “P” drive.

The documents state an employee at the unnamed credit union requested the bank’s technology supplier to disable Barile’s access after her termination, but it wasn’t revoked.

Her 40-minute stint on the system saw customer and company data deleted, including mortgage loan applications and minutes from board meetings.

The credit union has spent more than $10,000 on recovering the destroyed data, as only some of the documents were backed up.

“Ms. Barile may have thought she was getting back at her employer by deleting files, however she did just as much harm to customers,” says FBI assistant director-in-charge, Michael Driscoll.

“Her petty revenge not only created a huge security risk for the bank, but customers also depending on paperwork and approvals to pay for their homes were left scrambling.”

The newly-formed New York Cybercrime Task Force, set up in May, handled the case in cooperation with the FBI’s Cybercrime Task Force and the National Security and Cybercrime Section.