select all

Job-Hunting Tip: Don’t Threaten to Hack a Company Unless It Hires You

Todd Michael Gori.

Finding a new job can be an arduous process. There are cover letters, job interviews, figuring out what your role would be in a new organization, and threatening to hack your potential employer if it doesn’t fire someone and replace that person with you.

That last particular job-hunting strategy is courtesy of Todd Michael Gori, who decided to try emailing a potential employer, Chapel Hill–based health-care-software vendor TSI Healthcare, threatening to hack it unless the company fired someone in the position he wanted and replaced her with him.

Gori, who was sentenced to 37 months in prison for the threats, said he and unnamed accomplices would hack TSI Healthcare unless his demands were met. The letter, which was obtained by Bleeping Computer, is quite the production.

“I am giving you, TSI healthcare two choices,” wrote Gori. “You either lay-off [identity redacted] and replace her with me, an operator 100x better that she is oppressing. Or I will take out your entire company along with my comrades via a cyber attack.”

“Again you have two choices. Get ride of her and hire me. Or slowly be chipped away at until you are gone. She is a horrible operator that can only manage 2 screens with an over inflated travel budget. I fly at least 10x as many places as this loon on 1/5th of the budget,” the email continued.

“I have petitioned for a job with you guys with her as a reference as I am a felon with computer skills and need assistance getting work as technically I have ‘no work history’. She declines everytime and burries me even further.”

Gori then stated he had done penetration testing on TSI Healthcare and discovered weaknesses in their security.

“Im giving you guys 72 hours to respond until the attack goes full scale. There is nothing that can be done to stop the attacks. I have ran multiple penetration tests on your entire network and your company fails miserably,” wrote Gori.

“Again let me be clear. The only way I will work with TSI and stop the attack is to fire [identifying information redacted] and hire me and ensure I am compensated enough …”

TSI turned the emails over to the FBI, which investigated Gori. Much more disturbing, Gori reportedly also threatened to buy a firearm and shoot TSI employees, leading initially to much more severe charges. A plea agreement meant that Gori didn’t face prison time over the firearm-related threats, but Gori will still be serving time for cyberthreats.

Job-Hunting Tip: Don’t Threaten to Hack a Potential Employer