http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3048122a28,00.html 29 September 2004 An American businessman has told the Dunedin District Court he had no reason to believe a former employee who attacked his company's computer system late last year would not do so again. Robert Lee, the Oregon-based chief executive of internet music and video stores, Buy Music Here (BMH), told Judge Gary MacAskill the entire code for the company's system had to be rewritten to at a cost of over $400,000 to protect the company from further "back door" attacks. Mr Lee was giving evidence about the extent of damages incurred by his company as a result of attacks by a 37-year-old Dunedin academic, previously employed by the company, both in America and in New Zealand. The man, described by Mr Lee as "the most skilled programmer we've ever employed", had written core parts of the code. The company believed the only way for the system to be safe in the future was for the entire code to be rewritten by a software engineer of the same high capability level as the defendant. A damages report, updated for the disputed facts hearing, lists the total cost to the company at $441,122.50. But Judith Ablett-Kerr QC, counsel for the accused who has earlier admitted attacking BMH's system, said her client, who has temporary name suppression, believed the damage amounted to about $1500. Under cross-examination, Mr Lee agreed the company had not yet replaced the system "in a comprehensive way", but it had built some defence mechanisms. Ms Ablett-Kerr said a code replacement calculation of $156,000, contained in the company's costs, was the cost of an engineer working 300 eight-hour days on an hourly rate of $65 . To a suggestion from her it was not necessary to replace the code at all, Mr Lee said his information was the company would be foolish not to replace it if they wanted to protect itself from further attacks by the defendant. The defendant has already admitted three representative charges of unlawfully attacking BMH systems and deleting and interfering with data. He has been on bail awaiting sentence but that cannot take place until the extent of the damages has been determined. Mr Lee will continue his evidence tomorrow. _________________________________________ Donate online for the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes - http://www.c4i.org/ethan.html
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