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Canadian Karim Baratov sentenced to 5 years in Yahoo security breach

Karim Baratov pleaded guilty in November to nine felony hacking charges. Global News File

SAN FRANCISCO — An Ancaster, Ont., man has been sentenced to five years in prison in connection with a massive security breach at Yahoo that U.S. federal agents say was directed by Russian government spies.

U.S. Judge Vince Chhabria on Tuesday also fined 23-year-old Karim Baratov US$250,000.

Baratov pleaded guilty in November to nine felony hacking charges. He acknowledged hacking thousands of webmail accounts for seven years ending with his arrest last year.

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He charged customers to obtain another person’s webmail passwords by tricking them to enter their credentials into a fake password reset page.

READ MORE: Canadian accused in Yahoo hack pleads guilty to 9 charges in U.S. court

Prosecutors allege that the Russian security service hired the Kazakhstan-born Baratov to target email accounts using information obtained from the Yahoo hack.

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His attorneys said Baratov didn’t know he was working for the Russian spy agency.

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