A Minneapolis man is accused of stealing and downloading delicate data from a Minnesota Timberwolves government’s onerous drive whereas he labored for the group.
Prosecutors charged 23-year-old Somak Sarkar with third-degree housebreaking in connection to the incident, which allegedly occurred final month.
Court docket paperwork state that Sarkar labored as an analyst for the group till he was moved to a training group final summer season as a result of he was “butting heads” together with his boss, failing to attend conferences and submitting code incorrectly.
At that time, Timberwolves Govt Vice President Sachin Gupta, who served as the top of basketball operations earlier than Tim Connelly was employed, informed Sarkar he was being moved to a distinct function. Gupta informed authorities he thought Sarkar took the information effectively, though Sarkar grew to become “standoffish” after their discuss.
Then, on Feb. 3, Sarkar allegedly went into Gupta’s workplace when no person else was round and took a tough drive linked to Gupta’s laptop computer. That drive contained worker and participant contracts, strategic data, delicate private knowledge like tax returns, financial institution statements and funding particulars, in addition to usernames and passwords, Gupta informed police.
Charging paperwork state that Gupta noticed the onerous drive was lacking when he got here to work two days later and had safety overview surveillance video, which caught Sarkar getting into Gupta’s workplace.
Forensic evaluation later confirmed that Sarkar’s laptop computer was used to open among the information on the onerous drive, and greater than 5,000 information in complete had been accessed and downloaded elsewhere, the court docket paperwork add.
Sarkar was fired later that week and a pal was capable of get the onerous drive again. Sarkar was arrested earlier this week after police discovered a number of onerous drives, tablets and a pc in his residence, considered one of which had all the data from Gupta’s onerous drive, the grievance states.
He claimed he had the onerous drive to “put some stuff on it” and forgot to return it.
His first court docket look is scheduled for Thursday afternoon.