Seattle – A 36-year-old former Seattle tech employee was convicted right now in U.S. District Courtroom in Seattle of seven federal crimes related to her scheme to hack into cloud pc information storage accounts and steal information and pc energy for her personal profit, introduced U.S. Lawyer Nick Brown. Paige A. Thompson a/okay/a ‘erratic,’ was arrested in July 2019, after Capital One alerted the FBI to Thompson’s hacking exercise. The jury deliberated for ten hours following the seven-day jury trial. Thompson is scheduled for sentencing by U.S. District Choose Robert S. Lasnik on September 15, 2022.
“Ms. Thompson used her hacking abilities to steal the non-public data of greater than 100 million folks, and hijacked pc servers to mine cryptocurrency,” stated U.S. Lawyer Nick Brown. “Removed from being an moral hacker attempting to assist firms with their pc safety, she exploited errors to steal invaluable information and sought to counterpoint herself.”
Thompson was discovered responsible of Wire fraud, 5 counts of unauthorized entry to a protected pc and damaging a protected pc. The jury discovered her not responsible of entry machine fraud and aggravated identification theft.
Utilizing Thompson’s personal phrases in texts and on-line chats, prosecutors confirmed how Thompson used a instrument she constructed to scan Amazon Net Providers accounts to search for misconfigured accounts. She then used these misconfigured accounts to hack in and obtain the information of greater than 30 entities, together with Capital One financial institution. With a few of her unlawful entry, she planted cryptocurrency mining software program on new servers with the revenue from the mining going to her on-line pockets. Thompson spent a whole lot of hours advancing her scheme, and bragged about her unlawful conduct to others through textual content or on-line boards.
“She wished information, she wished cash, and she or he wished to brag,” Assistant United States Lawyer Andrew Friedman stated in closing arguments.
The intrusion to Capital One accounts impacted greater than 100 million U.S. Prospects. The corporate was fined $80 million and settled buyer lawsuits for $190 million.
Wire fraud is punishable by as much as 20 years in jail. Illegally accessing a protected pc and damaging a protected pc are punishable by as much as 5 years in jail. The last word sentence is as much as Choose Lasnik who will take into account the sentencing tips and different statutory elements.
The case was investigated by the FBI Seattle Cyber Job Drive. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Andrew Friedman, Jessica Manca, Tania Culbertson, and Steven Masada.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/pr/former-seattle-tech-worker-convicted-wire-fraud-and-computer-intrusions
