Login | May 03, 2025
Former Eaton developer convicted for “kill switch” code activated upon his termination
RICHARD WEINER
Technology for Lawyers
Published: May 2, 2025
A former Eaton Corp. dev was found guilty in a Cleveland federal court of messing with a protected Eaton computer by creating a “kill switch” that was automatically activated when he was let go by the company.
Normally, it isn’t a federal offense to damage some company’s computer system. However, under 18 USC § 1030(e)(2) a “protected” computer is one that is owned by the government, is affiliated with a financial institution, or is involved in voting or interstate or foreign commerce. Damaging such a computer can get the perpetrator up to ten years in prison.
That is the sentence facing one Davis Lu of Houston, a 55-year-old software developer who worked for Eaton starting in 2007 and was found guilty of violating the above law following a six-day bench trial.
Lu was apparently mad at Eaton over his job. A corporate restructuring in 2018 had reduced Lu’s responsibilities and he, perhaps in anticipation of losing his job, started to create software that would cause a series of infinite loops in Eaton’s computer systems, as well as a “kill switch” that would shut the whole thing down upon his forced departure.
Said forced departure occurred in 2019, and Lu’s malicious code kicked in. The infinite loop caused the system to crash and login credentials to be messed up, and the kill switch wreaked havoc on the whole system.
The infinite loop software was named after the Japanese word for “destruction” and the Chinese word for “lethargy.” The kill switch was named "IsDLEnabledinAD," which is an apparent abbreviation of "Is Davis Lu enabled in Active Directory." The kill switch affected Eaton workers worldwide.
The DOJ, in statements, lamented the fact that Lu had apparently wasted his education in attacking Eaton’s systems. The defense, on the other hand, said that they would appeal, even though Lu admitted creating the infinite loop software. Must have missed something.
But it is pretty cool to have an international tech story originate right here in NEO.
Note: Eaton’s US headquarters is in Beachwood, where it moved from Cleveland in 2013. Its worldwide headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland. Nevertheless, the east side of Cleveland has always claimed the international power company as its own.