US Army Soldier Pleads Guilty to Hacking Telcos and Extortion
A shocking case of cybercrime has come to light, as former US Army soldier Cameron John Wagenius pleaded guilty to hacking into telecommunication companies and attempting to extort them by threatening to release stolen files. The Department of Justice announced the news on Tuesday, revealing that Wagenius, who went online with the nickname "kiberphant0m," had conspired to defraud 10 victim companies.
According to the DOJ, Wagenius and his conspirators used various tactics to steal login credentials from their victims, including brute force attacks and other techniques. Once they had obtained this sensitive information, they would transfer it to Telegram group chats and discuss hacks in an effort to extort money from their targets.
The scope of the hack was vast, with Wagenius attempting to extort his victims both privately and publicly, including on notorious hacking forums such as BreachForums. In addition to the extortion attempts, he also sold some of the stolen data and used it to commit other forms of fraud, including SIM swapping victims.
Wagenius' prior offenses included a breach that led to him stealing a massive amount of call records from AT&T and Verizon earlier this year. As a result of this breach, Wagenius had already pleaded guilty to hacking these companies, demonstrating the extent of his cybercrime activities.
The sentencing for Wagenius is scheduled for October 6, with him facing up to 20 years in prison according to the press release. The hacker has also been linked to a series of hacks that originated from the breach of cloud computing services giant Snowflake.
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