Scorned Ex-Worker Allegedly Hacked Planes at Flight School

She is accused of clearing planes for flight that needed maintenance.

When an employer and an employee part ways, it’s not always on the best of terms, but in most cases, the departed worker moves on with their life.

In most cases.

But in others, an ex-worker can feel wronged to the point where they look to exact revenge.

A 26-year-old Florida woman has been accused of hacking into the systems at her former workplace, the Melbourne Flight Training School.

According to a report published by Vice’s Motherboard, 26-year-old Lauren Lide resigned from her position at Melbourne in 2019 after her father, who also worked there, had been fired. A few months later, the CEO of the flight school, Derek Fallon, noticed some significant gaps in information in the app the company used to track its flights.

Vice says Fallon called the police and explained the records in the flight app were changed or missing. For example, some planes with maintenance issues had been labeled “airworthy,” and others had inspections reminders deleted. Fallon stressed to police that some of these planes cleared for flight may not have been safe for the pilots to fly.

After grounding the flights and fixing the data issues, Fallon accused Lide of the breach after he reportedly discovered the changes were made using administrator log-ins. When they traced the IP address, police were said to have determined it belonged to the Lide family.

According to Vice, “In an interview with the police, Hampton Lide (Lauren’s father) denied having knowledge of these events, but said he was ‘kinda concerned about (his) daughter.’"

Besides this, neither the Lides nor the Melbourne Flight Training School are commenting. Meanwhile, Lauren Lide was charged with one count of fraudulent use of a computer and two counts of unauthorized access to a computer system or network.


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