Insider sold troves of stolen data

SAMUT PRAKAN: A former employee of a system developer was arrested at his apartment in this Central Plains province for allegedly stealing data and selling it online, according to the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).

The 27-year-old suspect, identified only as Woraphol, was charged with accessing a computer system without authorisation among other charges, police said yesterday.

The arrest was made on Tuesday after a month-long investigation when the company was alerted to the sale of data claimed to have come from its database, according to police.

The company filed a complaint with the TCSD on Sept 6 after it found the personal information of some 600,000 people was being sold online. The seller claimed the data belonged to users of the company’s website.

Police working with the company’s technicians identified the former employee as a suspect. They obtained a warrant from the Samut Prakan provincial court to search his apartment.

They detained Mr Woraphol and seized a notebook, two phones and a bank book.

During his interrogation, the suspect admitted he had accessed the company’s computer system and stolen data containing the personal information of the 600,000 people. He said he sold it for 300,000 baht in digital currency, and spent the money on online gambling.

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) and TCSD have called on companies to step up their security measures against the unauthorised accessing of their data.

Pol Col Siriwat Deepor, deputy commander of the TCSD, said the firms must restrict employee access to data and make sure that only authorised users gain access to sensitive information. Strong passwords are a must and one password for all accounts is not recommended due to the risk of them all being compromised.