Hacking Practices in the AV Industry

United States. The cyber attacks carried out by hackers reached the audio and video industry, and not properly to seek recognition or fame, but to steal confidential information from a company in the sector. This fact became known when the company Sapphire Marketing, representative of Crestron Electronics in New Jersey, announced that the Vice President of one of its competitors, AMX Corporation, a subsidiary of Duchossois Industries, was accused of illegal conduct, illegal access to a system and stealing data.

The Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey is investigating David Goldenberg after the cybercrime unit discovered that he had stolen thousands of proprietary and confidential data from Sapphire Marketing through repeated emails and unauthorized access to his mail server.  

David, who started at AMX as Regional Sales Director in June 2007 and was later promoted to Vice President, is accused of illegally penetrating and downloading information from some Sapphire employees, including information on sales proposals, commission of statements, pricing, sales reports, personnel records, lists of distributors, consultants and end users.

Rashid Skaf M, president and CEO of  AMX, assures that the company is surprised and stunned by the news, because the company's policy is that each employee acts with the highest standards of morals and ethics, in addition to obeying the law in all its aspects.  Additionally Skaf announced that the functions he exercises Goldenberg is being served by Alan Stoddard, who serves as Vice President of U.S. Sales.

For her part, Marla Suttenberg, owner of Sapphire Marketing, says she is shocked by corruption, a sense of entitlement and indifference to the privacy rights of the company's customers and employees. He also said it is a disgrace and an embarrassment for the industry for a competitor to resort to being practiced to gain an advantage over the competition.