Earlier this month, the US District Court for District of Maryland denied a partial motion for summary judgment in a case filed by Infotek Corporation against Mr. Dwight Preston, a former employee. See Infotek Corp v. Preston, No. CCB-18-1386, 2022 WL 4121414 (D. Md. Sep. 9, 2022).
The court concluded, in an opinion by District Judge Catherine Blake, that questions of fact remained as to whether Infotek’s costs were “reasonably necessary” to remediate Preston’s unauthorized access under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act (CFAA).
In so doing, the court offered valuable guidance for technology companies and other employers pursuing similar claims against ex-employees.
At Infotek, Preston served as chief financial officer for nearly a decade. In 2015, Preston’s wife began working for Infotek, as well. During Preston’s tenure, Infotek’s owner, Ms. Jacky McComber, gave Preston her credentials for an internal bookkeeping program, known as Unanet, to run certain reports for her. In March 2017, Preston resigned, and Infotek revoked his Unanet account; however, Preston continued to access Unanet through McComber’s account. After Infotek fired Preston’s wife in June 2017, Preston used McComber’s account to give existing employees extra paid time off and edit Intofek’s billing rates on several contracts. Two months later, in August 2017, an anonymous whistleblower filed a complaint alleging that McComber fraudulently billed the National Security Agency (NSA) under one of Infotek’s...
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