Ex-Astro employee jailed four years for converting 731 customer accounts to corporate access

KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 — A former employee of a pay television station was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment by the Sessions Court here today after pleading guilty to 731 charges of tampering with the company’s database over nearly seven years.

Judge Izralizam Sanusi imposed a four-year jail sentence on Nora Idayu Jaafar, 49, for each charge and ordered all sentences to run concurrently from today.

Today’s proceedings took about five hours as the court read out all 731 charges against Nora Idayu before she entered her guilty plea.

According to the facts of the case, Nora Idayu, who had worked with Astro since 2003, was granted access to the company’s internal AMDOCS Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system through two user IDs registered under her name.

Checks on the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and CRM systems revealed that 731 regular customer accounts had been unlawfully converted into corporate accounts using the accused’s two user IDs between October 30, 2013 and August 20, 2020.

The accused’s actions were not authorised by Astro, as corporate accounts were non-paying accounts created solely for the company’s internal use, while regular customers were required to subscribe through paid customer accounts instead of accessing Astro services through corporate accounts without authorisation.

Under the charges, Nora Idayu, who worked in the Commercial Support Unit, was accused of tampering with data by converting 731 regular customer accounts into corporate accounts, despite knowing that the act would result in unauthorised changes to the database contents.

The offences were allegedly committed at the Astro office at Menara Icon, Jalan Tun Razak here under Section 5(1) of the Computer Crimes Act 1997, which carries a maximum fine of RM100,000 or imprisonment of up to seven years, or both.

Earlier, lawyer Daniel Annamalai, representing the accused, pleaded for the prison sentences for all charges to run concurrently, citing his client’s clean record and bipolar disorder, which affected her emotional stability and judgment.

“The accused began working in 2003, but became involved in these offences after getting married in 2013 due to extreme domestic pressure and financial difficulties caused by her former husband, who was a compulsive gambler.

“An excessively harsh sentence may worsen the accused’s mental health condition, whereas a balanced sentence would allow her the opportunity to undergo rehabilitation and continue receiving treatment,” the lawyer said.

However, deputy public prosecutor Siti Aina Rodhiah Shikh Md Saud urged the court to impose a heavy sentence, stressing that the offences were committed consistently and systematically over a very long period.

“The accused’s actions have affected the integrity and reliability of Astro’s computer systems, particularly the CRM system, which is the company’s core customer management and transaction system,” she said. — Bernama