Clinic Hacker Gets 9-Year Sentence

Videotaped Himself Committing the Crime
Clinic Hacker Gets 9-Year Sentence
A former security guard at a Dallas medical office has been sentenced to more than nine years in prison in a hacking case that drew national attention because the hacker posted video of the crimes on YouTube.

Jesse William McGraw was sentenced on charges that he broke into computers and installed malicious code while working the night shift in 2009 at North Central Medical Plaza, which houses a surgery center and medical offices. McGraw pleaded guilty to the hacking charges in May 2010; he has been in custody since his arrest in June 2009.

McGraw was sentenced to 110 months in prison on each of the two counts, to be served concurrently, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. He was also ordered to make restitution to the occupants of the medical plaza, which include W.B. Carrell Memorial Clinic, the North Central Surgery Center and the Cirrus Group.

McGraw, who went by the moniker "Ghost Exodus," was the self-proclaimed leader of the hacking group known as Electronik Tribulation Army. Prosecutors say that in the spring of 2009, he broke into more than 14 computers, including one at a nursing station and another that controlled the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

His actions included: installing a program that gave him remote access to the computers, removing anti-virus software and installing malicious code, known as a bot. McGraw admitted he intended to use the bot to launch a denial-of-service attack on the website of a rival hacker group, prosecutors say.

He was arrested in June 2009, just days before he planned to launch the attack, which he called "Devil's Day."


About the Author

Howard Anderson

Howard Anderson

Former News Editor, ISMG

Anderson was news editor of Information Security Media Group and founding editor of HealthcareInfoSecurity and DataBreachToday. He has more than 40 years of journalism experience, with a focus on healthcare information technology issues. Before launching HealthcareInfoSecurity, he served as founding editor of Health Data Management magazine, where he worked for 17 years, and he served in leadership roles at several other healthcare magazines and newspapers.




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