Well thats just...
...stupid. How daft can a prison boss get before he is too stupid to even breath?
<Fail because that´s what the prison bosses parents did>
A UK prison computer system was left in lockdown after jail bosses gave a convicted cybercriminal the task of reprogramming it, the Sunday Mirror reports. Douglas Havard, 27, an inmate at Ranby Prison, Nottinghamshire, was asked to take over a project to create an internal TV station using the jail's computer network. Havard …
"The prisoner was not able to access records of any other prisoners." ..... Errr, he may not have to if he can just talk to them.
And the quote above might be more accurately shared as ..."The prisoner was not thought able to access records of any other prisoners." ...... for is that not more likely the truth.
Well that's just dim. Dim on the part of the people in charge, unless they did assess the risk properly and knew he really *couldn't* access any personal data, concluding that he couldn't do that much damage.
However, it's even more stupid on the part of the crim - he could have either a. Done the job as requested and used it to make himself a bit more employable on his release, along with probably time off for good behaviour, or b. done the job, left himself with a way in but not locked anyone else out, or c. deliberately 'failed', but still left himself with an admin account or backdoor, or d. done the dumbest thing of all and brought the whole situation crashing down around him. Sounds like a real evil genius, this one.
Obviously the difference between knowledge and wisdom. This fool has a chance to do something that might get his sentence reduced, give him continuing access, and possibly just keep himself from going insane with boredom, and the first thing he does is act like a 14 year-old and play Hax0r.
At least he's proven that he's in the right place.
Given that they had to hire "external consultants" to get them back in after something as simple as a password change, I would have no confidence that the prison bosses have any clue about what he did to the system.
Full restore from a known secure backup taken before he started messing around is indicated, before they have a bigger probklem (mass breakout?) on their hands later. Plus another couple of years on his sentence, pour encourager les autres.
"Another inmate at Ranby Prison recently managed to get a key cut that was capable of opening every door at the jail."
I'm not sure what the dumbest thing about this actually is? Is it the fact that the inmate sufficient details to get a master key cut? Is it that a key somehow reached the prisoner from the outside world (presumably that's how it was done)? Or is it the fact that the entire prison has similar locks that can be opened by a master key?
Actually I think I'd go for the last one. That really is staggeringly dumb in a prison.
I imagine he bought himself enough time during the lockout for his auto-creditcard ebay phishing program to run and net him a nice paycheck for when he gets out.
The extra time inside for his offences just means more interest on his bank account.
A bit surprised they got outside consultants in and didn't just ask another prisoner to help them given how stupid they clearly are.
More to the point, on discovering this problem do you think they:
A) Closed the entire gaol while they replaced all the locks.
B) Retrieved the copied key from the miscreant and wrote a report on the issue.
C) Retrieved the copied key from the miscreant, removed any bars of soap with suspiciously key-shaped imprints from cells and wrote a report on the issue, drawing attention to how clever they were to think of the bit about the soap.