Worker ordered to pay $300k after hacking employer

A worker from California has been ordered to pay $319,000 (£248,000) in damages after hacking his employer's computer systems to inflate the number of hours he worked and steal clients.

Former private security officer, Yovan Garcia, hacked into payroll records at his employer, Security Specialists – an agency providing private security patrols – to increase the number of hours he worked to gain overtime pay.

He later hacked the firm’s severs to steal data and deface the website creating "debilitating" damage, according to the company, BBC News reports.

Security Specialists became suspicious with Garcia’s pay records in July 2014, with one example showing he worked 12 hours a day over a two-week period, and was owed 40 hours of overtime pay. This resulted in him getting paid thousands of dollars more than he was owed, when in fact, he worked just eight hours a day.