FBI Gets Conviction in Computer Hacking Case

The FBI has announced the conviction of Jon Paul Oson, 38, on computer hacking charges. He was indicted on two counts of doing intentional damage to protected computers. He has been convicted on both counts.

The evidence produced at trial showed that he deleted patient data of clients of the North County Health Services Clinic. The data was stored at the place he was working at the time, the Council of Community Health Clinics ("CCC"), which is located in San Diego, California. His actions resulted in financial losses to his employer, the North County Health Services Clinic, and other clinics as well. He also caused the patients to suffer loss of care.

Oson was a network engineer and technical services manager at the Council of Community Health Clinics, which is a non profit organization providing various services to seventeen Community Health Clinics located in San Diego and Imperial Counties, California.

The North County Health Services Clinic uses their technology services to host and as well as manage its Practice Management system. The system performs such services as billing, scheduling appointments and tracking medical information of patients such as diagnosis, treatment plans and case history. He resigned his position because he received a performance rating that he looked at as being negative.

He accessed the CCC network without permission on Dec. 23, 2005. At that time he disabled the automatic feature that created the backup records of the patient information for the NCHS database.

The jury convicted Mr. Oson of accessing the CCC network without authority on December 23, 2005, and disabling the automatic process that created backups of the patient information for the NCHS database. Then he accessed the system again on Dec 29,2005 and deleted that data that was stored on several CCC servers. He also attacked the data for other clinics that used CCC servers.

His sentencing is scheduled for November 14, 2007. The arrest is the result of an investigation by one of the special FBI units, the Cybercrime Squad of the San Diego Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He could face up to 10 years in prison and fine of $250,000 on each of the two counts of Intentionally Damaging a Protected Computer.

Sopurce; FBI http://sandiego.fbi.gov/

The successful investigation in this case was the result of the efforts of one of the special units of the FBI, the Cybercrime Squad of the San Diego Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.