A Kitchener, Ont., man has pleaded guilty to charges related to a hacking attack on a U.S.-based cloud services company that compromised more than 165 organizations, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday.
The department said in news release that the 26-year-old conspired with other hackers and stole sensitive information online from the U.S.-based software service, then extorted victims by demanding ransom payments.
The department said he entered a guilty plea Wednesday on four counts of his indictment, including computer and wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
He’s scheduled for sentencing on Oct. 27 and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft and a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison on the remaining counts, the department said.
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The department said he and others involved in the “widespread computer hacking conspiracy” stole billions of “sensitive customer records” and advertised the breached data for sale on cybercrime forums. The Department of Justice did not name any of the companies involved.
According to the indictment filed in court, the Kitchener man and his co-conspirators extorted funds paid out in cryptocurrency worth approximately $2.5 million at the time.
Companies involved in the incident included major U.S.-based telecommunications, retail and health care firms, the indictment said.
The department said the Canadian man used the data obtained through the security breach to extort — and in at least in one case “re-extort” — victims of the conspiracy.
The accused himself obtained at least $495,000, the Department of Justice release said. It said companies that were targeted lost more than $9.5 million, a figure that does not include any losses incurred by their customers.
The department said the Kitchener man was arrested and extradited from Canada last year following an FBI investigation that received international assistance from police in Canada, Turkey, Ukraine, Spain and Australia.
DOJ records on the case said he surrendered himself for extradition in March of last year and initially pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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