The Carlyle Group has won a High Court order granting it access to information that may identity a hacker who forwarded a senior executive’s “embarrassing emails” to the press, which led to her resignation.
James Abrahams, counsel for Carlyle, told Mann J that an individual, which the company suspects is an employee, accessed the account of an executive whose role to present “the company to the public” and to deal with the press, and forwarded emails to the press and a former member of parliament. He said that although no stories appeared following the leak, the unnamed executive resigned.
Mann J ordered internet service providers BT Group and Hutchison 3G to hand over information that Carlyle believes may to identify the hacker; neither company opposed the granting of the order.
Abrahams said that the hacker had accessed the company’s servers off-site and knew the password, which aroused Carlyle’s suspicion that the perpetrator was an employee.
