Corporate spy pleads guilty to hacking and wiretapping
David A. Goldenberg is charged with corporate espionage for intercepting thousands of proprietary e-mails from his company’s chief competitor for nearly a year while working as a vice president for AMX Corporation, a subsidiary of Duchossis Industries. On 11 May 2009, he pleaded guilty to felony wiretapping and the judge has scheduled a sentencing hearing for 26 June at 10:30 a.m.
Goldenberg, 48, of Oceanside, New York, was the vice president of AMX Corporation, a global AV manufacturer, when he was arrested in March of 2008. Following a six week investigation, he was charged with Unlawful Access of a Computer System / Network- 3rd Degree, Unlawful Access of a Computer Data / Theft of Data- 2nd Degree and Conducting an Illegal Wiretap- 3rd Degree by members of the Paramus Police Department (a member of the Computer Crimes Task Force) in New Jersey and was released on $50,000 bail.
Paramus-based Sapphire Marketing represents audio/video manufacturers including AMX Corporation’s top competitor, Crestron Electronics. Sapphire filed a complaint to the Paramus Police Department on 6 February 2008, because they were suspicious of a “leak” and that they were frequently underbid for projects by Goldenberg and AMX. Confidential information disclosed to clients and partners led Sapphire to believe that their e-mail was being intercepted.
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“While setting up an ‘out of office’ reply, one of our employees noticed her e-mail was being forwarded to an outside e-mail account,” said owner of Sapphire Marketing Marla Suttenberg. “We immediately notified the authorities and took steps to both secure our system and allow law enforcement to garner the evidence they needed.”
Allegedly, thousands of proprietary and confidential e-mails were stolen by Goldenberg. Using “social engineering,” he accessed Sapphire’s secure Web mail account regularly over a seven month time span until he established a separate e-mail address to automatically forward Sapphire’s e-mail to his personal account. Goldenberg also had access to weekly conference calls, during which Crestron Electronics sales and marketing strategies were discussed, by using the call-in information he had because of his illegal access to Sapphire’s e-mail.
The estimated losses for Sapphire and Crestron are in the millions as sensitive material including sales proposals, commission statements, pricing, sales reports, personnel records and new technology plans have been compromised.
“While Mr. Goldenberg is paying the price, AMX Corporation has clearly benefitted from this illegally acquired information,” said executive vice president of Crestron Electronics Randy Klein. “The full damage caused by our chief competitor illegally obtaining this information is immeasurable and has seriously impacted our past, present and future business.”
Prior to working for AMX, Goldenberg was a client of Sapphire’s buying Crestron products. He approached Crestron for employment in May of 2007 and he was not hired. He later interviewed and was hired by AMX in June 2007 as general manager of its east coast office and was promoted to vice president before his arrest on charges of corporate espionage.
“It is ironic that a self-professed courtroom technology expert would be pleading guilty for using technology to spy on a competitor,” said Suttenberg.
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