Former IT employee hacked hotel’s system

A vindictive former hotel employee who hacked into the company’s computer system and destroyed files was yesterday ordered to pay nearly €8,000 in damages.

Andrew Cassar was fired from his job as an IT administrator and junior accounts clerk with the San Antonio Hotel in 2008 and in revenge, hacked into their system and deleted a number of files.

The St Paul’s Bay hotel claimed that it cost €20,422.62 to put things back to normal because a brand new system had to be purchased including a new server.

Mr Cassar admitted to the charges in the criminal court and apologised, however, he contested the claim by the company that the damages ran so high.

The company pleaded that it was not viable to replace just the old system and so had to replace the whole one.

A witness brought by Mr Cassar, David Spiteri Fiteni, testified that normally computer systems last about eight to 10 years and the system in question was installed in 2000.

Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi said that it resulted that the old system needed replacing before the incident took place and so the hotel could not expect the amount it was requesting.

The judge calculated compensation taking into consideration the interest and the value of the server had it been replaced three years after the incident took place.