By Dan Goodin in San Francisco for The
Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
Over a five-month period starting last September, the employees
allegedly gained access to Oracle's password-protected support site
by using the log-in credentials of Oracle customers whose service
contracts had, or were about to, expire, according to the
complaint (PDF). Once inside, they made more than
10,000 unauthorized downloads of documents relating to hundreds of
different Oracle programs. Oracle said there are "indications that
this number may go significantly higher if traced further back in
time."
"SAP has been engaged in a systematic program of unfair,
unlawful, and deceptive business practices that continues to this
day," the complaint claims. "Through its illegitimate and illegal
business practices, SAP has taken Oracle's Software and Support
Materials and apparently used them to insinuate itself into
Oracle's customer base, and to attempt to convert these customers
to SAP software applications."
A SAP spokeswoman didn't return calls seeking comment.
Oracle said the theft originated at Tomorrow Now, a Texas-based
SAP subsidiary that provides technical support for titles in
Oracle's PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards product lines. Although the
unauthorized access was made by users purporting to be employees at
Honeywell, Merck and other Oracle customers, IP addresses showed
the users were connected to SAP's network.
Oracle first grew suspicious in November, when it started seeing
an unusually high number of downloads for materials relating to
PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards products. They quickly spotted
anomalies. For instance, one customer account suddenly downloaded
an average of 1,800 items per day over a four-day stretch, compared
with normal downloads of about 20 per month.
In many cases, accounts engaged in wholesale downloading of
materials that had nothing to do with the products the real
customer had licensed, Oracle claimed. The credentials SAP
allegedly used all came from Oracle customers who were, or were
closing to becoming, new customers of Tomorrow Now. Oracle's
complaint didn't explain how SAP employees gained the
credentials.
© The Register
2007
