A U-Haul packed with copper wire got three men arrested outside a data center construction site in Sterling, Virginia.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a burglary in progress near the 45000 block of Maries Road just before 12:30 a.m. on July 31. Investigators spotted the truck, stopped it and found the wire in the back.
Deputies arrested Jhamal Micah Kalil Muskelly, 21, of Alexandria; Demetrius Shaun Charlton, 23, of Falls Church; and Cordell Lamar Carter, 18, of Washington, D.C. Each faces a grand larceny charge. Muskelly and Charlton are being held without bond. Carter’s bond was set at $4,500, unsecured.
What a security expert says
Murat Kantarcioglu, a Virginia Tech computer science professor who specializes in data security, told 7News that construction sites like this one need extra protection because the equipment is so expensive. He is a faculty fellow at the school’s Commonwealth Cyber Initiative.
Police are only part of the answer, he said. “Law enforcement is maybe one layer, but of course having alarms and other security measures will make it more secure.”
This case involved copper wire and nothing else. Kantarcioglu said stolen hardware can carry a bigger risk than the resale price. “People go after the sensitive data on those devices,” he said, and the result can be ransomware, fraud or identity theft.
Data centers keep going up across Northern Virginia and the wider DMV region, which means more buildings holding sensitive information. Kantarcioglu said the companies running them should encrypt what is stored inside. “If they don’t have access to the encryption or decryption keys, they won’t be able to access the sensitive data,” he said.
