Man Sentenced to Jail for Threatening Company with Cyberattack if They Didn’t Hire Him

A North Carolina judge has sentenced a former felon to 37 months in jail after the man threatened a company with a cyberattack if they did not fire one of their employees and hire him.

Bleeping Computer reports that according to court documents, 28-year-old Todd Michael Gori emailed healthcare software vendor TSI Healthcare, threatening the company with cyber attacks from him and his unnamed accomplices if they did not fire an employee working at the company and hire him. On April 18th, 2016, Gori wrote “I am giving you, TSI healthcare two choices. You either lay-off [identity redacted] and replace her with me, an operator 100x better that she is oppressing. Or I will take out your entire company along with my comrades via a cyber attack.”

Gori’s letter stated that he wanted this particular employee fired due to a personal vendetta against her for denying several of his job applications. “Again you have two choices. Get ride [sic] of her and hire me. Or slowly be chipped away at until you are gone. She is a horrible operator that can only manage 2 screens with an over inflated travel budget. I fly at least 10x as many places as this loon on 1/5th of the budget,” the email reads.

The letter continued to say, “I have petitioned for a job with you guys with her as a reference as I am a felon with computer skills and need assistance getting work as technically I have ‘no work history’. She declines everytime and burries [sic] me even further.” Gori then bragged about his testing of the company’s web security saying, “‘Im giving you guys 72 hours to respond until the attack goes full scale. There is nothing that can be done to stop the attacks. I have ran [sic] multiple penetration tests on your entire network and your company fails miserably.

Finally, Gori gave the company an ultimatum saying, “Again let me be clear. The only way I will work with TSI and stop the attack is to fire [identifying information redacted] and hire me and ensure I am compensated enough …” TSI contacted the FBI shortly after receiving the email, Gori was then tracked down by authorities in August 2017. Gori faced further charges after it was revealed that he had also threatened to buy a gun and shoot TSI employees, but this charge was dropped by prosecutors after Gori signed a plea agreement.

Gori will serve a 37-month prison sentence and will also receive three years of supervised release.