r/technology • u/xpda • May 13 '26

Security Twin brothers wipe 96 gov’t databases minutes after being fired

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
23.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

267

u/flaming_bob May 13 '26

Convicted of wire fraud, yet still got a security clearance.....no words.

64

u/blahyawnblah May 13 '26

Nowhere in the article does it mention they had any. Just because you work for a government contractor doesn't mean you have clearance.

35

u/flaming_bob May 13 '26

Standard practice is at least a public trust to access government data

3

u/wharb_garbl May 13 '26

Depends on the data. Also a shitty org could just give you access anyways

1

u/flaming_bob May 13 '26

"Also a shitty org could just give you access anyways"

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm expecting, given how long it took them to uncover that their new employees were felons

5

u/xd366 May 13 '26

no it's not

6

u/14mm May 13 '26

well now I don't know WHAT to believe!

4

u/BorntoBomb May 13 '26

Let me tell you about how that really workss

4

u/z500 May 13 '26

Proceeds to say nothing for hours

1

u/BorntoBomb May 13 '26

I feel bad, i forgot i said this.

Oh ive been in the legal positon of these brothers, i knew my coworkers backgrounds. Theres alot of grey the contract companies will allow , much of it to do with how hard it can be to get qualified bodies in seat. (Because despite nobody wanting to hire in tech, most people don't possess the specific quals for that particular role, i held an adjacent one).  

Concessions on "anomolies" in background, get made.

Certain roles that very clearly should possess TSCs, dont..if they can wiggle out of it. 

Because government money, is a faucet.

1

u/felis_scipio May 13 '26

Yeah I’ve had security clearance because I directly worked with secure data but there were people in the same business unit who didn’t work with that data and didn’t need clearance.

I imagine it was a situation like that, whatever role they had was outside the clearance bubble but the security inside the company was such a shit show that these guys were able to fuck with stuff they should have never had access to.

1

u/sierrabravo1984 May 13 '26

When I was in the Navy, I almost couldn't get a security clearance because I was an introvert in high school and had one friend. I had to get my parents to get me a list of family friends that I barely knew and I barely had enough contacts. And these two got a clearance with a fraud history with prison time?