Fired IT Staff Created Virtual Chaos At Pharma Company

A Georgia man who froze the operations of a New Jersey pharmaceutical company where he had worked by deleting portions of its computer network pleaded guilty this morning, admitting he executed the attack, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced. Jason Cornish, 37, of Smyrna, Ga., pleaded guilty to an Information charging him with knowingly transmitting computer code with the intent to damage computers in interstate commerce. Cornish entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Judge Stanely R. Chesler in Newark federal court. According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court: Cornish was an information technology employee at Shionogi, Inc., a United States subsidiary of a Japanese pharmaceutical company with operations in New Jersey and Georgia.