JUNE 14, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

FORMER SCHOOL EMPLOYEE SENTENCED FOR HACKING INTO DISTRICT’S COMPUTER SYSTEM

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Bradley J. Schlozman, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a former employee of the Northeast Nodaway R-V School District was sentenced in federal court today for hacking into the district’s computer system.

Henry Curtis Underwood, 33, of Bloomington, Ill., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey this afternoon to one year and six months in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Underwood to pay $15,600 in restitution to the school district.

On Feb. 21, 2006, Underwood pleaded guilty to unauthorized computer intrusion. Underwood was employed as the district’s technology coordinator, but had been placed on administrative leave at the time of the offense. Underwood had been convicted of bank robbery in 1995 in federal court in Texas and sentenced to five years and three months in federal prison, but Underwood did not reveal his criminal history in his job application.

In the course of investigating a $200 theft from the Parnell Elementary School in December 2004, a Nodaway County Deputy Sheriff uncovered Underwood’s bank robbery conviction. Underwood was placed on administrative leave on Jan. 27, 2005, and the next day sent an instant message to the principal at Parnell Elementary saying that he could not understand why he was accused of taking the missing money. On Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005, while working in her office, the principal was abruptly logged off her school computer and she could not log back on. An investigation revealed that only two accounts were still functioning, the “cunderwood” account and the “Administrator” account. All other accounts on the school district’s network had been disabled and could not be accessed, and all computer work stations at both Parnell Elementary and Ravenwood High School had been disabled.

At the time Underwood was suspended, school district officials were unaware he had provided himself with remote access to the district’s computer network through a Virtual Private Network. Underwood had established a VPN link from his home, using a laptop computer, to the Ravenwood school.

Underwood admitted that he established a remote connection to the district’s computer system on Jan. 29, 2005. Underwood used the unauthorized access to initiate a program that locked out or disabled every user of the system with the exception of the account “cunderwood” and the administrator’s account.

The Jan. 29, 2005, computer intrusion was highly disruptive of the operations of the school district. Full access to the system was not restored until March 2005, and the school district has incurred remediation costs in the form of payments to consultants to repair the network and reestablish account access.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Curt Bohling. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.