Former Amazon worker convicted in Capital One hack

A former Amazon Net Companies worker was convicted of hacking into Capital One and stealing the information of greater than 100 million folks almost three years in the past in one of many largest information breaches in the USA.

Paige Thompson, who labored for the software program large as an engineer till 2016, was discovered responsible on Friday of seven federal crimes, together with wire fraud, which carries as much as 20 years in jail. The opposite fees, illegally accessing a protected pc and damaging a protected pc, are punishable by as much as 5 years in jail. A jury discovered Thompson not responsible of aggravated id theft and entry machine fraud after 10 hours of deliberations, a launch mentioned.

Prosecutors argued that Thompson, who labored underneath the identify “erratic,” created a instrument to seek for misconfigured accounts on AWS. That allowed her to hack into accounts from greater than 30 Amazon shoppers, together with Capital One, and mine that information. Prosecutors argued Thompson additionally used her entry to among the servers to mine cryptocurrency that went to her personal pockets.

“She needed information, she needed cash, and he or she needed to brag,” Assistant United States Legal professional Andrew Friedman mentioned of Thompson in closing arguments throughout the week-long trial. 

Capital One in December agreed to pay $190 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the breach, along with an earlier settlement to pay $80 million in regulatory fines. The information stolen included about 120,000 social safety numbers and roughly 77,000 checking account numbers, in response to the criticism.

An lawyer representing Thompson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

U.S. District Choose Robert S. Lasnik set Thompson’s sentencing for Sept. 15.

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