Ex-Citibank employee fined $130 000 for data theft

In the latest development of the Citibank court case, ex Citibank relationship manager Lydia Koh entered a guilty plea in court on Tuesday and was slapped with a hefty $130,000 fine for her misdeeds under the Computer Misuse Act. She was fined $6,500 on each of 20 charges while 168 other counts were taken into consideration.

In her involvement in the latest corporate scandal to rock Singapore, 29 year old Koh had illegally retrieved confidential client information to send to her personal email account. She had abused her position which gave her access to sensitive customer details and data stored in the bank’s database and Universal Work Station System.

Furthermore, Koh’s supervisor had sent her two email messages and a spreadsheet file of data on the investable assets of the bank’s Citigold high net worth customers that she was not permitted to obtain.

She had committed these offences between May and June 2006 after she had intended to leave Citibank for rival bank UBS. Out of the seven people involved, four have been charged while one got away with a warning. The remaining two will receive their verdict next week.

In such cases of data theft, computer forensics is a pivotal process. As soon the company suspects a breach, they should enlist the help of a computer forensics expert to verify the suspicion and should not attempt to do the investigation without proper techniques and expertise. Evidence could be easily destroyed or altered by just booting up the suspected computer with a quick browse.

Through a detailed process, professional investigators will be able to retrieve the consequential data, or evidence of the data theft which is permissible on court. Before selecting the vendor, companies should ascertain that the company follows a set of rigorous forensic methodologies in order to identify, acquire, preserve, analyze and document digital data (electronically stored information) for use as evidence in court or other legal or administrative proceedings.

News was released on 6 May 2009 in Straits Times:

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore
/Story/STIStory_373071.html

More on Citibank court case:

June 10 2009 - Ex-banker fined $160,000

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/
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