Top 10 most shocking IT executive scandals

Usually the biggest scandals to engulf the IT world revolve around the mysterious departures of senior executives from the world's largest firms for hidden reasons - we're looking at you here Steven Sinofsky.

However, sometimes the industry throws up incidents that go beyond the world of IT and into the wider news agenda, such is their shock and scandal - such as the case of McAfee founder John McAfee, on the run in Belize over questioning relating to the murder of his neighbour.

He even hid himself in sand up to his neck to escape the authorities, he has said.

With such drama and intrigue around the case, V3 couldn't help by recall some other exotic and shocking incidents from the past few years, underlining that while the industry for the most part runs like clockwork, there's plenty of gossip out there too.

10. Mark Hurd expense scandal sends HP spiralling

The problems at HP over the recent years can all be traced back to one moment - the departure of Mark Hurd. He'd been overseeing the stately IT giant for several years and seemed to have it ticking along nicely.

Then news broke that Hurd had been the subject of an investigation into alleged harassment of a contractor. The probe had cleared him, but found that he had broken HP's Standards of Business Conduct.

Hurd had charged expenses to the company while having a personal relationship with a female marketing contractor between 2007 and 2009. The expenses reportedly ranged from $1,000 to $20,000.

This led to his swift exit, the arrival of the disastrous Leo Apotheker, his rapid departure, the arrival of Meg Whitman, and in between that they also acquired Autonomy, lost Mike Lynch, and plans to axe some 30,000 members of staff. Oh, Mark.