Football Leaks: Sporting’s system crash occurred before the computer attack

This Tuesday confirmed the former systems administrator of the Alvalade club.

The disruption of Sporting’s email system occurred before the computer attacks allegedly sent by Rui Pinto, the former systems administrator of the Alvalade club confirmed this Tuesday at the 11th session of the Football Leaks trial.

According to David Luís Tojal, “the first error detected was at 09: 06.16” on September 22, 2015, leaving Sporting users without access to their respective mailboxes. On the other hand, the former computer technician “Leonino” indicated that “the first attack occurs at 18: 55.04” of the same day, that is, almost 10 hours after the “crash”.

The system tried to restart spontaneously about 10 minutes after the disruption, following a long process started by the club’s computer team. “Starting at 09:16, it was almost 48 hours straight trying to solve the problem”, said David Luís Tojal, who, questioned by Judge Margarida Alves if the “crash” was related to the commands allegedly sent by the creator of Football Leaks, ended for answering “no”.

The former Sporting computer technician was also unable to find an explanation for the origin of the “crash”, having confessed that the computer attacks of that day had no influence on the situation that the club’s email system was experiencing, in a statement that he can place concerned the crime of computer sabotage attributed by the Public Ministry to Rui Pinto.

“At the time we had no perception that the attack was taking place. We just went back to the logs. [registos de acesso] when Jorge Jesus’ contract at Football Leaks comes out “, David Luís Tojal assumed. The former systems administrator also stressed that the club was not properly equipped with specialists and computer security tools and admitted that he did not know” what tool was used to make such an attack “.

David Luís Tojal’s hearing was closed this morning, after having also confirmed that accesses were confirmed or missed by an Internet address from Hungary between 22 July and 29 September – without making it clear whether those accesses were related to the disruption September 22nd. The session continues in the afternoon at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, with the hearing of Bruno Cardoso, a former Sporting official.

Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was also what led to the pronunciation of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.

The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, “due to his collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, part of the protection program for witnesses in an undisclosed location and under police protection.