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AT&T employees took bribes to plant malware on the company's network
AT&T employees took bribes to unlock millions of smartphones, and to install malware and unauthorized hardware on the company's network, the Department of Justice said yesterday.
These details come from a DOJ case opened against Muhammad Fahd, a 34-year-old man from Pakistan, and his co-conspirator, Ghulam Jiwani, believed to be deceased.
The DOJ charged the two with paying more than $1 million in bribes to several AT&T employees at the company's Mobility Customer Care call center in Bothell, Washington.
The bribery scheme lasted from at least April 2012 until September 2017. Initially, the two Pakistani men bribed AT&T employees to unlock expensive iPhones so they could be used outside AT&T's network.
[...] This initial stage of the scheme last for about a year, until April 2013, when several employees left or were fired by AT&T.
That's when Fahd changed tactics and bribed AT&T employees to install malware on AT&T's network at the Bothell call center. Between April and October 2013, this initial malware collected data on how AT&T infrastructure worked.
According to court documents unsealed yesterday, this malware appears to be a keylogger, having the ability "to gather confidential and proprietary information regarding the structure and functioning of AT&T's internal protected computers and applications.
The DOJ said Fahd and his co-conspirator then created a second malware strain that leveraged the information acquired through the first. This second malware used AT&T employee credentials to perform automated actions on AT&T's internal application to unlock phone's at Fahd's behest, without needing to interact with AT&T employees every time.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 06 2019, @07:39PM (5 children)
It looks like they were permitted to quit, or resign, or otherwise just walk away from the job without being prosecuted. I guess AT&T was hoping to keep all that crap under wraps, preventing the public learning how easy it is to corrupt the system.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 06 2019, @07:59PM (3 children)
None of that matters. The AG has to charge them also. They are the actual perpetrators. Or is bribery the only charge here?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 06 2019, @08:18PM (2 children)
I'm not sure that follows. The government can grant immunity, among other things, so, no, the AG doesn't have to charge one criminal to prosecute another. The AG can prosecute the mastermind of a criminal conspiracy, and let the small actors walk.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 08 2019, @04:58AM
Their testimony without evidence is worthless hearsay, and if you have evidence, you don't need to grant immunity to anybody for their testimony. The people who took the bribe should at least suffer the same fate as the the ones that offered it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday August 09 2019, @01:52PM
Except when it's the little guy acting alone, in which case it becomes, "I have no choice! The law is the law and I have to uphold it!"
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday August 06 2019, @09:17PM
So now they can charge or fine AT&T for the coverup?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh