Date: 01-17-2025

Case Style:

United States of America v. Vamsikrishna Naganathanahalli

Case Number:

Judge: Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers

Court: The United States District Court for the Northern District of California

Plaintiff's Attorney: The United States Attorney’s Office for Oakland

Defendant's Attorney:

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Description:

Oakland, California criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with Damaging Former Employer’s Computers
Dublin Man Sentenced To 18 Months In Federal Prison For Damaging Former Employer’s Computers

Dublin resident Vamsikrishna Naganathanahalli was sentenced today to 18 months in federal prison for damaging computers belonging to his former employer. The Honorable Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, U.S. District Judge, handed down the sentence.

Naganathanahalli, 49, pleaded guilty on Aug. 15, 2024, to three counts of knowingly causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causing damage without authorization, to a protected computer. According to his plea agreement, defendant worked for MedAmerica, Inc., part of the Vituity group of companies, from October 2018 to June 2022. Vituity, based in Emeryville, Calif., included physician partners and other healthcare professional employees who worked as contractors in hospital emergency rooms, outpatient clinics, telehealth providers, and other clinical settings. The company also employed non-clinical healthcare personnel who worked with healthcare providers in various facilities. Vituity used the Oracle Human Capital Management (“HCM”) platform to organize core human resources data for its approximately 7,000 employees. The HCM platform contained records for current and past Vituity employees, including their Social Security numbers, salaries, and addresses. Naganathanahalli worked for Vituity as a Senior HCM Architect.

Defendant admitted that, on May 28, 2022, the day after being told that his employment at Vituity was being terminated, he used his access to a privileged HCM service account to change the password for another employee’s privileged Vituity HCM account without authorization. On or about Sept. 6, 2022, after his employment had ended, he used that privileged HCM account to change the HCM password for a Vituity contractor. That same day, he used the contractor’s account to load files containing “dummy” or “masked” data, which replaced real data, to the Vituity HCM live production environment. As Naganathanahalli admitted, the generic masked data overwrote the real data for approximately 90 percent of Vituity employees, current and former. Defendant’s conduct caused a loss to Vituity of at least $400,930.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, Judge Gonzalez Rogers also ordered Naganathanahalli to pay $400,930 in restitution and a $300 special assessment and sentenced him to a three-year period of supervised release. The defendant will begin serving his sentence on July 20, 2025.

United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Acting Special Agent in Charge Dan Costin made the announcement.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle J. Kane and Nikhil Bhagat are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Kathy Tat. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI.

Outcome:

Defendant was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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