An Indian student was sentenced to 12 months in prison which is to be followed by one year of supervised release, for intentionally damaging computer equipment of a New York college.
Besides the prison sentence, Vishwanath Akuthota was also ordered to pay US Dollars 58,471 as restitution charge, United States Attorney Grant C Jaquith said on Tuesday, as reported by news agency PTI.
Akhuthota, who had earlier pleaded not guilty- changed the plea to guilty.
Akuthota admitted that on February 14, 2019, he, without authorization from the College, entered multiple computer workrooms on the College’s campus. Following which he “inserted a Killer device he purchased online, using his own money, into the Universal Serial Bus data ports on 59 Microsoft Windows computer workstations and seven Apple iMac computer workstations owned by the College, as well as numerous monitors and digital podiums containing USB data ports.”
“The Killer device would, after being inserted into a host device’s USB data port, send a command to the host device that would (1) rapidly charge the host device’s on-board capacitors and (2) then discharge that voltage over the data lines into the host device, repeating this cycle multiple times per second, thereby destroying the host device by overloading, and physically damaging, the USB data port and the device’s electrical system,” his plea document read.
The device, when inserted into a computer’s USB port, sends a command causing the computer’s on-board capacitors to rapidly charge and then discharge repeatedly, thereby overloading and physically destroying the USB port and electrical system.
Akuthota is an Indian citizen and was residing in the United States on a student visa. He has been in custody since his arrest in North Carolina on February 22.
