The administrator extorted $10,000 from his employer after sabotaging the company’s website.

An IT administrator has been sentenced to four years of federal probation after pleading guilty to extorting companies, sabottering websites and redirecting visitors to porn sites.

The Tempe, Ariz., resident provided IT services to an unnamed Company based in Phoenix, but took advantage of his access to wreak havoc on the company’s Website, the Justice Department said Tuesday. The administrator, Travis Tso, not only blocked employees’ access to their email accounts, but also made the home page of the company’s web site a blank page.

Chu renewed his account with GoDaddy in 2011, possibly for domain name services or hosting services, according to the plea agreement. In May 2015, when the company updated its contact information with the domain registrar, the IT administrator claimed he did not have the required account information and later registered his personal account with Microsoft to gain control.

The IT administrator then blackmailed the company for $10,000 to unlock the domain name and give IT back control. When the company rebuffed chu, he went further: redirecting the site’s home page to a gay porn site.

Days later, the website was back up and the FBI eventually tracked chu down and charged him with electronic fraud under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Chu was also ordered to pay $9,145 in damages to the victim.

As Ars Technica noted, prosecutors did not specify a jail term. Us attorney Matthew Binford said the 39-year-old man had a decent job and the extortion attempt appeared to have been “an unexpected and momentary lapse of judgment”.

Earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors sent a member of the “Crackas with Attitude” hacking gang to prison for five years. Justin Liverman, also known as “D3F4ULT”, pleaded guilty to a number of crimes, including leaking sensitive information belonging to more than 30,000 FBI and defence agents.

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